


The Wand(maker) Chooses the Wizard

by pleasebekidding



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: M/M, Wandlore (Harry Potter), draco is a mess, wandmaker harry
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-29
Updated: 2020-08-29
Packaged: 2021-03-07 02:14:20
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 30,179
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26179321
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pleasebekidding/pseuds/pleasebekidding
Summary: It has never occurred to Harry that he doesn't have to be an Auror, until it does.When he accepts an apprenticeship under Ollivander his entire life changes.And then along comes Draco, no less complicated than he has ever been, and no less handsome.
Relationships: Draco Malfoy/Harry Potter
Comments: 54
Kudos: 673





	The Wand(maker) Chooses the Wizard

**1998**

The first month after the end of the war — that was the easiest. There was a sense of celebration, even amidst all the funerals and mourning. Everyone had _tasks_ to do, ways to keep busy, work that would put them to sleep at the end of the day. Harry was regularly trotted out by the Ministry to talk to the public, asking them to dig deep; this was a world full of destroyed buildings and new orphans who needed help. Fundraising was easier than expected. Anyone who had ever expressed a shadow of agreement with Tom Riddle’s absurd fantasies about blood purity was particularly keen to be seen donating large amounts.

Harry and Ron and Hermione hadn’t waited very long before they started helping to rebuild Hogwarts, and there was something extremely satisfying about physical exhaustion. Hogwarts herself helped, of course. She wanted to be repaired, she just couldn’t do it by herself, so it was common to find that the stones that had been levitated into place on a destroyed wall would be firmly mortared into place by the following morning. A lot of the community came to help. Most of the Weasleys were there, including Charlie for a few days at a time before he started worrying about his dragons, and that was family.

The Hogwarts elves kept everyone fed and worked hard themselves — too hard, by Hermione’s reckoning — and every single day felt full of joyful purpose.

When Hogwarts was standing, and the required work became much more fiddly specialist magic, Harry and Hermione followed Ron to the Burrow. Molly didn’t say a word when Hermione moved into Ron’s bedroom, and Harry himself commandeered the comfiest couch near the downstairs fireplace. And everything was lovely.

Just lovely.

And then the second month rolled around, and with it, hell.

Joyful purpose began to look a lot like anaesthetising focus, and with the initial flurry of activity over, the anaesthesia wore off.

It was surprising that in the end it was Hermione who was the first to crack; Harry had to berate himself for assuming that she was somehow immune to this kind of garbage, just because she was the most determined person he knew. The night she woke screaming for the first time, Harry and Ron wrapped themselves around her afterwards and she cried for hours into Ron’s neck. _Bellatrix. Crucio_. Those were the only words she managed to say out loud, and they were more than enough to paint the picture.

Everyone helped, in their way. Molly cooked too much food and baked a great deal of bread. It was only days later than Arthur Weasley told Hermione very quietly that Molly had been the one to end Bellatrix’s life. The two women had left, mysteriously, that afternoon, and returned with red eyes and some kind of new and profound understanding. The nightmares, though. They stayed.

Harry was the next one to get them. In his nightmares, everyone he had ever loved was complicit. They didn’t come to stay with him as he moved from one world to the next, to comfort him; no, they just came to watch.

 _This is what you were_ for _, Harry,_ they’d say, faces impassive, bored _. There’s nothing left for you to do, after this._

He would wake up sobbing, sometimes alone, sometimes with someone doing their best to comfort him, and he wondered if this was what life was going to be like for the rest of his days; just a series of horrors, nightmare after nightmare until he couldn’t take it any more. And then Ron, though he didn’t scream in the night — he started climbing out of bed and wandering out of the house, finding himself lost and wandless when he woke up at last. Harry and Arthur spent a weekend putting up charms all over the doors and windows that were supposed to sound an alarm if Ron tried to leave.

Harry and Ron sat in the dark living room after one such night when Ron had been woken while he was trying to climb out a window.

“I don’t know how you ever forgave me for leaving,” Ron said. “I don’t think I ever will. I don’t think Hermione ever could.”

“We’d forgiven you before you were even gone, Ron.”

“Ah, that’s why Hermione was demanding your wand when she finally laid eyes on me again — makes sense.” He sounded bitter. “She wanted to hex my bollocks off in a _romantic_ way.”

They sat in silence for a long time. Ron’s eyes trickled tears; Harry didn’t think he even knew, but they flowed, one after the other, healing and cleaning, Harry hoped. Corroding and burning was the less desirable option.

“D’you think we’ll ever be alright?” Harry asked, quietly, hypnotised by the flames in the fireplace, the way he sometimes was.

“I’ve no clue, mate.”

In the morning, Hermione found them like that, asleep, Ron’s head on Harry’s shoulder. She pulled a blanket up over their bodies and let them sleep while she helped Molly and George in the kitchen.

“My Mind Healer says I need something to do,” Harry told Ron and Hermione as they sat on the back steps, a few days into the new year. Hermione sat a step lower than Ron, resting between his thighs, periodically re-casting her warming charms; Hermione’s magic felt like summer air against Harry’s cold cheeks. It was nicer to sit outside and look at the snow without having to be cold than it was being stuck inside all the time.

“Like what?” Hermione asked; Harry had been the first of the three of them to accept that he wasn’t going to get through without help, but like so many others, one by one they had all begun to make their way to acceptance. “Come back to school? Harry, it doesn’t matter that they’ve waived your NEWTs and let you into Auror training — you should finish, just so you know you _can_ and so you know you’re not getting something for nothing. I know you, Harry Potter, and you might not think that way now but in a few years —”

“No, no, I know. And you’re right. I’ll be going back with you two in September.”

Ron squawked; he was getting a little tired of the way everyone assumed he would just do whatever Hermione thought was right. However, since Molly had elbowed in on the issue as well, he looked ready to concede defeat.

“But something to do with my days. Something constructive. It’s too easy to get caught up in my head; d’you know what I mean? She told me to find a new challenge, something to do with my hands and my magic. Something I’d be proud of in the end. I don’t know what, though.”

From inside the Burrow there was a loud crash and raised voices, and all three of them flinched. Family or not there had been too many months now of close quarters, frayed nerves and quick tempers.

“I’ve got an idea,” Ron said, moody. “Build us a tree house so we can get away from things.”

Harry snickered. “Maybe in the summer.”

Hermione sat up straighter. “No, Ron’s right.”

“I am? I mean,” he corrected hastily, “I am. What am I right about?”

“I’m not building a tree house when they’re predicting we’ll have two feet of snow by the end of the week, Hermione. I love you and your healing spells but when my fingers freeze and fall off we both know you won’t be able to stick them on again.”

“But we do need some space,” Hermione said, carefully. “And for that matter so does everyone else. And I love your mum, Ron, you know I do, but she won’t accept much help in the kitchen and she’s running herself ragged.”

Ron and Harry had to agree. They knew what she was doing. Trying to bury herself in work so that grief couldn’t overwhelm her.

“Grimmauld Place,” Hermione said. “We can clean it up, and live there. It’s only a step from the Burrow via the Floo. We can keep busy, get to therapy, enjoy some quiet…”

Ron and Harry looked at each other, and Harry felt a thrill of genuine excitement for the first time in months. He had a house; it was not in good repair, and he certainly didn’t think he could spend the rest of his life there, but it would be a good and useful thing to do for now.

The next day found them at Number Twelve, with an assortment of house-repair spell books, a collection of tools from both worlds, and eyes sparkling with excitement.

The day after Harry’s birthday (which had been a very quiet affair indeed, the occasion marked by a handful of extra tears but also one of Molly’s carrot cakes) Hermione opened the kitchen window for an owl, and accepted a copy of the Daily Prophet. By the time she found Ron and Harry, she was white as a sheet.

Harry leapt to his feet, tea and toast forgotten, helping her into the chair next to Ron’s.

“The Malfoys,” she said.

Harry took the paper out of her hands. It was less than a week since Harry had spoken at Narcissa and Malfoy’s trials. Five days since Malfoy had been cleared of charges and Narcissa had received a sentence of one year in Azkaban, rather than the ten she had been promised; Harry had told the Wizengamot that she was the reason he had made it back to the castle alive, something they clearly hadn’t wanted to hear about, as they had changed the time and location of her trial and Malfoy’s several times in an effort to prevent him from testifying. Four days since Lucius had been transferred to Azkaban to live out his days there.

“She’s dead,” Harry said, his mouth dry.

“Oh, Harry,” Hermione said. “When will this be over?”

Harry didn’t answer and he didn’t need to. They all knew that it would never be over, not really, not for those who had survived it.

“What happened?” Ron asked, incredulous. “She was in good shape for a, for a — well, she didn’t look like she was going to keel over and die. And they were on house arrest, being waited on hand and foot by the elves, right? Not like she…”

Harry read the article carefully, but there were no hints. She had been found dead.

“I’m going to go to the funeral,” Harry said. “I don’t expect you to come with me —”

“Of course we will,” Hermione said, wiping her eyes. “But right now, I need to do some hard work so I don’t spend the whole day crying.” And that was what they did.

Two days later, dressed in mourning robes, they apparated to a cemetery which Harry had never heard of before. Judging by the unearthly and faintly dangerous-looking gravestones and mausoleums, this was a pureblood cemetery. Ron held Hermione’s hand, and Harry carried Teddy (who was looking decidedly drab) on his hip, Andromeda crying stoically as she wiped her nose.

“I thought there would be more people,” Harry said, quietly. Including the five of them, there were a little over a dozen, and two were Ministry officials of some sort. None of Malfoy’s friends from school were there. Pansy’s family had disappeared to France, Harry knew. Gregory Goyle was in hospital; he hadn’t coped with the memory of the Fiendfyre, or Vincent Crabbe, at all. Theo Nott, Blaise Zabini — Harry had no idea. But there was no one here for Malfoy, and Harry felt ill.

“In this political climate? You have to be joking, Harry.” Andromeda cast a warming charm over her grandson. “I wouldn’t be here myself if you hadn’t convinced me I’d regret it one day. Maybe you were right.”

Teddy fussed, and Harry handed him back to Andromeda, who cooed and patted him softly.

“No Malfoy,” Ron murmured. As if summoned, Malfoy appeared in place at the head of the grave, his spine straight, his eyes dry, and (one of those things Harry could have difficulty failing to notice, sometimes) his magic flashing and jagged in the air around him. The contrast between his calm exterior expression and his inner grief was frightening to see.

“Do you think we should try to talk to him?” Harry murmured.

“I don’t know,” Hermione said. “Shh, it’s starting.” Harry had attended many funerals in the previous months, even years, but never a pureblood one like this. There was only silence, when Malfoy shook his head and declined to speak, and after a few moments of awkward waiting, Narcissa’s coffin was entombed in a marble case, which was swallowed up by the earth.

Malfoy didn’t watch. It would have been easy to think that he was, but he wasn’t. Harry could see how his eyes were unfocused, and his hands perfectly still. He was there, but his mind was somewhere else, and Harry was prepared to bet it was a long way from Wiltshire.

When it was over — and that was quite quickly, the whole painful thing over in a handful of moments, with no one to speak for Mrs Malfoy — Harry and the others stood a short distance from the grave, waiting. Harry was hoping that at some point he would realise the exact thing that he needed to do here and suddenly summon the fortitude to do it. He had one eye on Malfoy and one on Teddy, whose hair had turned green suddenly as he turned a leaf over in his chubby little hand.

Malfoy sighed deeply, and stood. He reached into the pocket of his robes and pulled out two envelopes, and then he walked in the direction of the group.

“Fuck, he’s coming,” Ron said. “What do we —”

Malfoy stopped as the circle opened to include him, but didn’t step any closer. He didn’t look well. How could he, though, with everything that had happened?

“Thank you for coming,” he said, and his voice was tight and reedy as if he was barely keeping himself upright. Perhaps he was.

“I’m sorry about your mother,” Harry said.

“Yes,” Malfoy answered, as if he couldn’t think about it for another second. “Well. Yes.” He turned to Hermione. “Ms Granger, I apologise deeply for everything that happened to you in my family home,” he said, and gave an awkward little bow. “For not doing more to try to protect you there. And for everything I said and did to you at school.”

“Oh,” Hermione said. For a moment there was a fuzziness in her eyes that Harry recognised, the threat of being pulled back into that nightmare. “Thank you, Malfoy.”

“And you, as well, Mr Weasley,” Malfoy went on. He met Ron’s eyes for a moment. Only a moment. “I’m sorry I called your family — what I called them. I’m sorry about everything. I hope you can believe me, though I am not asking for forgiveness.”

Harry frowned. This was not what he had been expecting. Malfoy looked for a moment as if he had something else he wanted to say to Ron but was rapidly running out of steam. In fact, his hands had begun to shake.

“Aunt Andromeda,” Malfoy said, next. He handed over one of his envelopes. “I’ve placed some money in a Gringott’s vault to safeguard Teddy’s future, and yours. The details are in here. There is a letter from my mother, as well. If you don’t want to read it, I ask you not to destroy it, but put it somewhere safe. She asked me to make sure I said that. But I don’t think she’d be angry if you tossed it in the fire.”

Harry had felt his own anxiety ramping up with every moment that passed. Malfoy handed him the final envelope. “Could you please hand deliver this to Kingsley Shacklebolt, Potter? It’s not sealed.”

“Alright,” Harry said. He hadn’t been expecting an apology; he really hadn’t. The silent understanding they had arrived at the previous week was as much as Harry was ever going to want or need from Malfoy and he was quite sure Malfoy felt the same. “Malfoy — what are you going to do?”

“I’m leaving,” Malfoy said. “There’s no place for me here. Not after everything I’ve done. You’re right to hate me. You all are.”

He pulled his hands into his sleeves, and took a breath, staring at the green grass beneath his feet. He opened his mouth to say something, and looked Harry right in the eye. Harry didn’t want to feel sorry for Draco Malfoy; he really didn’t. But when he looked into those eyes, when he felt the frenetic energy of his magic spiking all around him — Draco Malfoy, Harry was reasonably sure, was quite broken.

“Malf—”

There was a crack of apparition, and Malfoy was gone.

Harry had decided that Sirius’s room was the one he wanted for himself and now that it was clean and repaired and the carpet had been replaced, he was glad. Sometimes he felt — or _imagined_ he felt — Sirius’s magic still clinging in places. On top of the dresser a coffee mug with a broken handle held all of the feathers that Buckbeak had left behind. The permanent sticking charms on the Muggle posters didn’t bother Harry one bit; in fact, he had carefully stuck some equally wonky frames around them and quite liked the effect.

That night, he sat on the bed with a mug of tea and looked at the envelope Malfoy had handed him. He hadn’t decided yet if he was going to open it. His door opened, and Ron and Hermione slipped inside, already in their pyjamas and clutching their own mugs of tea.

“He made a point of telling you it wasn’t sealed,” Hermione said, as she sat cross-legged on the end of the bed.

“It feels invasive, though.” Harry pulled his legs up beneath him.

“Mm,” Hermione said, but her voice sounded troubled.

Strangely enough, it was Ron who cast the deciding vote. “He wanted you to read it, or he wouldn’t have said it wasn’t sealed. The pointy git might be a… pointy git, but if he wanted you to know… whatever that is, then I think you should read it. Otherwise, it’s like throwing it back in his face, innit?”

“That was surprisingly incisive,” Hermione said.

Ron shrugged, looking uncomfortable. “Dunno why, but I can’t make myself hate him as much just now. Feels like kicking a crup. It’ll probably wear off in a day or two.”

Harry sighed, and removed the pages from the envelope. He frowned. So many words. Harry had never blossomed into a passionate reader the way Hermione had hoped he might, and this looked like a lot of legalese that he wouldn’t have been able to understand anyway.

Until he did.

“Oh, fuck,” he said. “I think… ‘Mione, I must be misreading this.” He passed her the front page, and his eyes went very wide as he took in the second.

“You’re not,” she said quietly, moments later. “It’s reparations. But it’s not what the family was ordered to pay… it’s everything they have. The vaults, Malfoy Manor, a Villa in Tuscany… another in France. Everything. Except what he gave to Andromeda and Teddy.”

Harry looked over the map in his hands. “Instructions on how to bring the wards down. But why… this doesn’t make any sense,” Harry said, shaking his head.

“Perhaps.” Hermione took the map from Harry, and then the rest of the papers, flicking through them. “But if he really has changed his mind… if he really is sorry, and Harry, I believed him, when he apologised. I did. Would you want to keep anything that reminded you of…”

“Look, it says here he freed all the elves, and wants Hogwarts to consider taking them on as employees.” Ron was shaking his head. “He’s _mental_. I hate him even less, now, though. D’you think they’ll all go to Hogwarts?”

Harry’s thoughts swam.

By unspoken agreement, the three of them shared Harry’s bed that night, Hermione in the middle, Ron’s chest pressed to her back, her head on Harry’s shoulder. But it took Harry a long time to get to sleep.

When he finally did, his last thought was that if Draco Malfoy had indeed changed, Harry would have liked the chance to get to know him. But it was too late. Malfoy was gone, and Harry sincerely doubted that he would ever see him again.

The following day, Harry presented the envelope to Kingsley Shacklebolt. Kingsley read over the contents several times.

“I’ll send a team of curse breakers and Aurors over there as soon as possible,” he promised, at last. “Thank you, Harry.”

“What will you do with the place?” he asked. But Kingsley was already calling for his assistant to make arrangements.

Hermione had won, of course, and she, Ron and Harry all returned to Hogwarts in the autumn to finish their NEWTs. Eighth year students from all houses shared a common room, and a strange collection of bedrooms (singles, doubles, a dormitory; strangely well arranged, actually, and it turned out that everybody’s preference fit precisely within the odd collection). There were fewer students than Harry had thought there might be, and only two Slytherins. They kept themselves to themselves for the first two weeks but after a relentless campaign of inclusion by Hermione they had conceded defeat by the end of the third.

It was easier to give in to tears from time to time knowing that every single other person did the same thing, and just as often. Harry didn’t think he would ever quite believe the day that he’d find Hermione and Millicent Bulstrode comforting each other in front of the fireplace, and sharing painful memories. And Blaise Zabini continued to be a git, but it turned out that he was a kind, funny git, quick to laugh or notice when someone needed something.

Harry was regularly invited to Ministry events of all kinds. He felt an obligation to accept them, until the night that Hermione let loose on him and accused him of treating himself the way others had treated him; like a pawn, a really shiny and expensive pawn who’d never been able to make his own choices, and who had no more obligation to the Ministry than any other Hogwarts student did. She’d yelled, he’d yelled, Ron had threatened to summon Molly Weasley, and then they’d all ended up on the couch together, laughing, crying, their fellow students silently brewing tea and bribing the house-elves for another round of dessert.

“Fuck it,” Harry said, and made his way to Professor McGonagall’s office.

“Headmaster,” he said, when she had pushed a chocolate biscuit into his hand, “can I ask you for a favour?”

“Of course, Mr Potter,” she answered. She was focused; he appreciated that. “I reserve the right to decide whether or not to agree to this favour, but please go ahead.”

“I need you to tell the Ministry to leave me alone for the rest of the year so I can finish my NEWTs. I don’t know… ban students from social events not arranged by Hogwarts, or something. I can’t stand it, Professor. The way they all want to shake my hand, and take my photograph, and touch my clothes — I think I’ve given enough, now, and I need time to be eighteen and stupid, not their sodding _Saviour_ —”

“I haven’t aggravated Minister Shacklebolt nearly enough, this year, Mr Potter. Say no more.” She sat quietly for a moment, after writing herself a note. “Tell me, Mr Potter — have you given any thought to what you might do next? After graduation?”

“I’ll become an Auror,” Harry said, surprised.

“I see. Why?”

Harry blinked several times. “Because it’s all I’ve ever wanted to be. I want to help people.”

“There are many, many ways to help people, Mr Potter. Some of them don’t require one to put one’s life on the line every day. Perhaps you should be thinking further afield.”

Harry felt his lips curl into an incredulous smile. Whatever McGonagall was getting at, Harry had no clue. Harry would be an Auror. He didn’t think he could even live with himself if he knew that there were people putting himself in harm’s way if he wasn’t doing the same himself.

“Er,” he said.

“Ever the elocutionist.”

“What else did you have in mind? I’m not sure what else I’m good at — I know I don’t want to play professional Quidditch. Molly thinks I should teach, but to be honest, I think after NEWTs I will need to give Hogwarts a wide berth until… well, for a good long time.”

McGonagall sighed. “There are hundreds of jobs in the magical world, and hundreds of things you haven’t yet had the chance to try. Perhaps you have an affinity for art. Or healing.”

“Very unlikely.” Harry laughed, and stood up. “Thank you, Headmaster. I do appreciate it. But I promise you, I don’t need a plan B. I’m doing well, you know. I have therapy, I have friends, I’m about halfway through renovating Grimmauld Place — I’m good. And I’ll be a great Auror, just you wait and see.”

**1999**

The only public appearance Harry Potter made during his eighth year at Hogwarts was on the 2nd of May, 1999, the first anniversary of the Battle of Hogwarts. It wasn’t a good night, and no more needs to be said about it here.

Harry and Ron got two Os and four Es each.

Hermione got nine Os, and Ron and Harry didn’t even ask her how she’d managed to sit nine exams.

And just like that, school was over.

Back at the Burrow, after celebrating graduation with the Weasleys, Harry, Ron and Hermione lay on the warm grass under the fading sun.

“I suppose we’re officially adults,” Ron said. “It’s not really the… turning seventeen thing.”

“Or the defeating a dark wizard thing,” Harry added.

“No, it’s all about completing this stage in our education,” Hermione said.

“You got much, much better at sarcasm.” Harry raised a hand and Hermione offered him a listless high five. “So, it’s the next big adventure, right?”

“Auror training,” Ron said.

“And I got into law school,” Hermione said. “You watch if I’m not running the Ministry by the time I’m thirty.”

“I wouldn’t bet against you,” Harry agreed. “And you’ll do a splendid job. Auror training.”

He was sure. He was still sure. No matter what Professor McGonagall said.

“Where do you think Malfoy is right now?” Harry asked, idly. Neither of his friends answered. He hadn’t really expected they might.

The trio moved in to Grimmauld place once again. It made sense. It was easy for Ron and Harry to get to the Ministry for their Auror training and easy for Hermione to get to school. There were plenty of rooms, so Hermione could also have a nice quiet study, once they had finished renovating one for her; an airy, light-filled room with a view over the distant gardens, an owl perch outside and an enchanted kettle so that Hermione didn’t have to leave the room to make tea when she was on a roll.

On a Friday night, eating Thai food in the kitchen with the WWN on for company, Harry handed Hermione an envelope. “I keep meaning to give you these,” he said.

She opened the envelope, and frowned. “What are they?”

“Whiskers,” Harry said. “From Crookshanks. I know you miss him.”

Hermione’s eyes brightened wetly for a moment. “Put them with Buckbeak’s feathers,” she said, and turned her attention back to her noodles.

“Are you going to Ollivander’s in the morning?” Ron asked. Harry shrugged noncommittally. “You have to, Harry. You need a wand.”

“You lost your wand?” Hermione said, sharply. They were both so used to Harry’s wandless spells, many of them non-verbal, that she hadn’t even known there was anything wrong with it.

“No,” Harry said. “It just… still doesn’t feel right. I can’t believe I got through the school year with it, but the Auror conducting our training did some measurements and isn’t happy with it at all.”

Hermione frowned. “And you can’t just cast wandlessly?”

Ron snorted. “That’s too advanced for ickle firsties like us,” he said glumly. “Really, help defeat a Dark Lord and they don’t even cut you the smallest break. Harry’s not allowed anywhere but theory classes until he has a wand they’re all satisfied with.”

“Then you’ll go to Ollivander’s in the morning, Harry,” Hermione said.

“Yes, Mrs Weasley.”

She threw a noodle at him.

“D’you know what else they said?” Ron asked, mischievously. “He has to cut his hair.”

Harry _shuddered_. He liked his hair longer. The bit that always stood up was heavy enough now to stay down, and though he wouldn’t have admitted it out loud, he thought it made him look rather rakish.

When he went to Diagon Alley in the morning, Ollivander’s was closed. He asked at Flourish and Blott’s and the proprietor there said that Ollivander’s health had been failing, and he preferred to take appointments, these days. Harry groaned. He felt badly for Ollivander, he did; he was a kind man, and he had helped in the war when he was needed. But Harry needed a wand. He paused too long in Diagon Alley, and was spotted.

He signed some autographs, his face hot and his voice strangled, starting to feel claustrophobic as the group around him got bigger, and he hoped he wouldn’t hear the next day in the Prophet that he’d been rude to them when he eventually made a hasty escape. Merlin, it was embarrassing. And it was hard to reason with people. They saw him a particular way, and he couldn’t begrudge them that; he only wished it wasn’t so very, very different to the way he saw himself. And he wished that he was allowed to mourn in his own way, without people telling him he must be _so relieved_ , must be _so sad_ , must be _so happy_ to be training to become an Auror.

 _Must I?_ , he always thought.

Harry decided to walk back to Grimmauld Place, and stopped on the way to collect some branches that had been blown off the trees in the nearby park. Grimmauld Place was coming along very nicely. Not finished, but it was hard to believe she was the same house that she had been when they’d first taken refuge there after Bill and Fleur’s wedding. She seemed to be responding beautifully to their intentions for her, the windows growing slightly to let in more light and air, the ceilings getting higher. The kitchen was back to being enormous, and the three of them had decided only this week that they would have a big party soon, invite all of the old gang to join them. Harry liked bringing natural wood into the place. The house seemed to know how to let it be shaped into skirting boards, and absorbed into failing window frames, and he was beginning to get a feel for the wood. He liked the way it hummed in his hand.

Late that night, Harry found himself sitting at the desk in his bedroom alone. Ron and Hermione were attempting a date night at a Muggle Gastropub, apparently. He was enjoying the quiet, the music on his record player, and debating asking Arthur Weasley if he knew a trick to make a television work without electricity. And he was turning a beautiful twig around and around in his hand. There was something very powerful about the thing. Powerful, and pretty. It was only about six inches long, too short to be a wand, really, but…

Harry tipped his mug over. The collection had been growing for a little while, now. He’d found some of Hedwig’s feathers, and put them in alongside the Hippogriff feathers. And Crookshanks’ whiskers — well, they were about five inches long.

Hermione probably knew how Wandmakers got the magical core into a wand. He’d ask her in the morning.

Except the tiny branch had the most wonderfully responsive feeling, in his hand. It seemed to be warm, almost. Harry laid it down alongside one of Crookshanks’ whiskers.

Wandless magic was never as precise as magic with a wand, but it could be much more powerful. And Harry didn’t really like to talk about it too much, knowing how Hermione could worry; but sometimes, he didn’t need to know the words, or even if something was possible. He just needed the intention, and enough mental space to _focus_ that intention.

He closed his eyes, and his hands tingled, magic weaving around his fingers and pressing into his skin like sunbeams on an early summer day. He saw, in his mind, the wand — and it _was_ a wand, now, just a wand waiting on its core — taking the Kneazle whisker into itself, welcoming it, drawing from it. And when he opened his eyes…

The whisker was gone.

The wand hummed faintly. Harry gave it an experimental little wave, and weak yellow and orange sparks tumbled from the end. He laughed. Not something the DMLE would appreciate, but it felt so good to have figured something out by himself that Harry kept making sparks for a good ten minutes.

On Monday morning, he had to explain to Auror Bones (apparently a distant cousin of Susan’s, and with none of her gentleness) that he did not yet have a wand.

“Then why are you here?” the woman said. “I think I was clear — you need a wand, Mr Potter. No one does wandless magic in this training course in the first six months and _only then_ if they have passed all exams.”

“I see,” Harry said, trying to sound disappointed when all he could really think about was how nice a day it was outside and how being sent home wouldn’t really be so terrible. “Alright, no problem at all. I’ll try to get an appointment at Ollivander’s —”

“No need. I walked by there this morning and the place is open. Just go. Tomorrow, we’ll test the fitness of your new wand and you can start again. Well, Mr Potter? Are you waiting for a hand-embossed invitation? You don’t impress me, you know. I know you’re good. But shortcuts get people killed, and I won’t offer you shoddy training just because you got lucky.”

Harry actually smiled at that. “I’m glad to hear it, Auror Bones. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

He apparated to Grimmauld Place to change into more casual clothes, and more importantly, to pick up his experimental little wand. On Sunday, he had lovingly sanded and then oiled it carefully to bring out the shine, and he wanted to show Ollivander.

“Harry, my boy,” the old man said, his hands shaking a little as he closed them around one of Harry’s, a little while later. Harry had dawdled terribly, stopping at a Muggle coffee shop to flirt with the man who always made his coffee, and to scarf down a couple of chocolate croissants. He’d stopped at the joke shop to see how George was doing. Angelina was there, and while George looked no less lost than he ever did without his twin, he did smile at her once or twice, quite wistfully.

Harry had also bought a package of an interesting-looking tea as a get-well gift for Ollivander, and he offered it to the old man now.

“Ah, look at that. Japanese Sencha. Lovely. Perhaps I’ll put on a pot.”

“I’ll do it, if you like,” Harry said, following him out the back. It wasn’t the main kitchen, just a tiny table, a kettle, and a small pantry full of tea and biscuits. Ollivander didn’t answer, but he sat gratefully at the table and watched as Harry made tea, coughing lightly from time to time. “I hear you’ve been ill. I’m very sorry to hear it. If there’s anything I can do —”

“My dear boy, unless you know how to turn the clock back, and make me young again, there’s nothing anyone can do. My wife is gone, my children and grandchildren have grown, and my great-grandchildren are getting there. I have far more happy memories than I do regrets — that’s quite enough to be getting on with. And what brings you to my shop?”

Harry cringed, and explained, as he wandlessly levitated the pot and the cups to the table, searching for a plate for a couple of biscuits. “So I need a new wand, and it needs to be… I don’t know. Better suited to me, I suppose. I don’t know why it’s been so difficult. Since my first one broke…”

He shrugged as he sat down.

“Well, we’ll find you something,” Ollivander said. He watched as Harry poured the tea. Harry only poured the cup to the half-way point, seeing how badly Ollivander’s hands shook.

“Oh,” Harry said, almost having forgotten. “I also wanted to show you something.” He drew the tiny, twisted wand from his pocket and passed it over. “Very crude, of course, I…”

He was suddenly embarrassed. Something about the expression on Ollivander’s face.

“You _made_ this, Harry?” Ollivander gave it a little wave, and smiled as the orange and gold sparks shot out from the end. “Is this — Kneazle whisker?”

“Well, half-Kneazle. We think. From Hermione’s old cat Crookshanks. I just wanted to see if I… are you alright, Mr Ollivander?”

Ollivander’s expression was almost serene, for the first time since before the war, Harry thought.

“There are a thousand years of Wandmakers in my family, Mr Potter,” the old man said, examining the tiny wand. “The skill usually passes down from generation to generation. But my son, bless his good heart — he was a Healer, until he retired, and so are all of his children. And my daughter, light of my life, was a rather famous Quidditch player, until she settled down to raise her own family, and took a coaching job instead. Of course, she’s retired too, and her children are so clever — they do all sorts of things. One of them is friends with your Charlie Weasley, works with dragons in Romania.” He pointed at a photograph on the wall, of a woman who looked rather a lot like Ollivander himself, dressed in Quidditch leathers and clutching a quaffle, sitting up on her broom occasionally to wave at the camera. There were dozens of photographs on the wall. Healers, and gardeners, and everything under the sun.

“I had no idea,” Harry said. “I’m sorry they weren’t interested in — I mean, of course, everyone needs to follow their own hearts, but…”

Ollivander waved him off. “It’s not that, not at all. The truth is, if someone doesn’t know how to make a wand, you can’t teach them.”

That didn’t make a lot of sense. But Harry nodded just the same. He didn’t dare look away from Ollivander’s face; maybe it would give him some clue as to what was happening, here.

(Maybe even then, Harry knew. But he wouldn’t believe, or let himself believe, until Ollivander said it. He heard Professor McGonagall whispering in the back of his mind that there were hundreds of things that he hadn’t yet tried, and how he’d been so sure he didn’t need to.)

“Are you enjoying Auror training, dear boy?”

Harry took a breath. No one had asked him this. Not yet. He’d been dreading the moment it would happen.

“No,” he said, surprised by his honesty and deflating a little. “I’m not. And I’m not disappointed that I’ve not been allowed into practical classes yet because — I feel as if I’ve fought enough for my entire life. I don’t _want_ to fight anymore. I don’t want my life to be about that. I want something softer, gentler.” He glanced at the tiny wand in Ollivander’s hand. “Perhaps even something more creative.”

Ollivander took another sip of his tea, his hand still shaking, and set his cup down on his saucer.

“A wandmaker’s apprentice earns a pittance,” he promised.

“I have more money than I could spend in five lifetimes,” Harry replied. He felt himself getting lighter. He felt himself imagining the gentle joy of coming to work in Diagon Alley every day, learning wandlore, working with wood. “I don’t care about money. Are you asking me to apprentice to you?”

“I am,” Ollivander said. “You can start as soon as you like. I have a great deal to teach you.” He coughed into a handkerchief, and it took him long moments to calm his breathing again. “And I don’t believe I have all that much time to do so.”

According to the roster which Hermione had made and stuck to the pantry door, it was her turn to cook. But seeing as Harry suddenly had the afternoon off — and would begin his apprenticeship the following morning as soon as he had told the DMLE that he wouldn’t be continuing his Auror training — he though he might do it himself. He hummed tunelessly along with the wireless and smiled as he chopped vegetables, pausing from time to time to pop a piece of something small and delicious into his mouth, or to reach into his pocket to reassure himself that the heavy iron key Ollivander had given him was still there.

He had done one more thing, in Diagon Alley. Harry had been very sure he couldn’t ever have another owl, after losing Hedwig; but somehow, taking control over his future had made him feel bold enough so that he now saw purchasing himself another owl as an act of forgiveness. She was a funny little thing, who cocked her head this way and that, and even seemed to dance sometimes on the perch he had conjured her in the kitchen so that she could get used to him.

She didn’t have a name, yet. Or rather, the Shopkeeper at the Magical Menagerie said her name was Lenore, and she was much too goofy for a name that sophisticated. She was a lovely tawny thing with enormous eyes which were very, very expressive, even for an owl.

Harry heard a commotion in the Floo, and laughed as Ron swore.

“Alright, Ronald?”

“Fuck off, Harold.” Ron came in, grinning, and looked around where Harry was standing at the kitchen counter. “Well? Where’s the new wand, then?”

Harry felt dreadful when he realised that Ron was going to be so disappointed.

“What time does Hermione get home?”

“Harry!”

“No, really. Will you go and find a couple of bottles of wine? I need to talk to you both, and there’s garlic bread in the oven and risotto on the stove, and I think a nice bottle of celebratory white wine would be perfect. I promise not to let you get drunk.”

“You promise,” Ron said, raising an eyebrow. He shucked off his robes and hung them on a hat stand.

“Alright, I promise you and Hermione can have the last two doses of hangover potion if you _do_ get drunk. Go and have a shower, change your clothes —”

“Yes, mum.”

“— you’re not too old for me to put you over my knee,” Harry said severely.

“But Hermione is all proprietary about that sort of thing,” Ron said with a leering grin, and bolted up the stairs.

After dinner, as Ron pressed a hand to his stomach and told Hermione that he was thinking about marrying Harry instead of her, Harry poured them each a second glass of wine.

“I think we’ve been very patient, Ron, don’t you?”

“I think we have, Hermione. And he looks like he’s ready to wriggle out of his chair. Spill it, Harry, or we’ll tip you over and _make_ you spill it.”

Harry laughed, and drew his tiny wand from his pocket, placing it on the table.

“Well first of all, I don’t think that’s regulation length,” Ron said, as he and Hermione frowned at it. Hermione picked it up, and gave a little wave. Her face startled with recognition.

“Crookshanks,” she murmured.

“I made that wand. On the weekend. As an experiment. And today, I took it to show Ollivander, and do you know what he said?”

Hermione sat straight in her chair. “He said he can’t teach anyone to make a wand if they don’t already know how, didn’t he. Oh, Harry — did he?” Hermione’s eyes were wide with excitement. “What did he say?”

Harry smiled. “He said that, exactly, and then he told me that Wandmakers’ apprentices make an absolute pittance. And he offered me an apprenticeship, and I said yes.”

Hermione was halfway to pulling him across the table in a bear hug before Harry was able to register that she, at least, was proud and happy. “It’s an incredibly rare gift,” she said. “And it’s usually genetic —”

“Ollivander thinks it’s because I mastered so many wands in quick succession. And because I’m so — … _alright_ with wandless magic.” He glanced nervously at Ron. “Ron? Are you okay?”

Ron nodded, but his shoulders sloped. “Yeah, mate, I… I’m glad for you. It’s great.”

Harry and Hermione shared a look.

“Ron?” she said, kindly.

“It’s just, it’s what we were going to do together,” he said. “I thought we’d do it together, graduate together, be partners for our whole lives —”

Ron,” Harry said, gently, topping off his glass. “It’s up to you whether you stay or not. But I can’t. I don’t want to. I did what I did because I had to, and it never occurred to me for a moment that I could ever be any good at anything else. I don’t want to ever have to Hex someone again…”

“But sometimes, it’s necessary!” Ron said, indignantly.

“It is. And someone _other_ than me needs to be the one to do it. Ron — I want a gentler life. I hope you can find a way to understand. You know what I’m like. I can see it now; hating my job and still running in ahead of everyone to make sure if anyone gets hurt, it’s me, and not them —”

“Doesn’t have to be like that, mate,” Ron promised, his dark eyes wide. “It’s strategy, you see. Planning. Knowing your opponent, like in chess. And then you don’t have to take those risks.”

Hermione closed her hand over Ron’s, and smiled proudly at him.

“Oh,” Ron said, understanding dawning on him.

“That’s why you’ll be a superb Auror, while I would probably have ended up in St Mungo’s once a week and ended up dying under _ridiculous_ circumstances. The Prophet would have a field day.”

Ron still looked a little shell-shocked.

“Are you okay, Ron?” Hermione asked, a gentle smile on her lips.

“I’m going to be a much better Auror than Harry Potter would ever have been,” he told his girlfriend. “How d’you like that? I’ll be Head Auror one day, see if I won’t.”

He didn’t let himself wonder if without Harry’s stupid famous shadow over him he’d have far more chances to shine. He did let himself remember all the nights where Ron had patiently tried to teach Harry a more strategic approach to chess, and Harry had gone dizzy, continuing to alternate between aggressive and defensive play without any kind of long term strategy.

“I wouldn’t bet against you,” he said at last, with a laugh.

New Year’s Eve was a play in two acts. In the late afternoon, Harry, Hermione and Ron visited the Burrow for an early supper. Everyone who could make it was there; Ginny, about to start her final semester at school, teasing everyone with her offers to join half a dozen Quidditch teams across the country and asking Harry if he’d met a nice young man yet, and reminding him that Charlie was still single.

(It was still very strange to Harry how readily she had accepted that the reason they hadn’t worked out was that he’d figured out at long last that he was — in Ginny’s words, telling the entire Weasley clan the following evening — as gay as a hat full of butterflies. He’d laughed as hard as the rest of them, and while he’d had a moment of panic, it was good to get it out of the way in one fell swoop.

He was no less a part of the family, though Molly did occasionally lament that they would have had the most _beautiful_ babies.)

Harry was glad to see Angelina Johnson arrive with George.

There were quiet tears, of course, throughout the afternoon and early evening. Harry doubted that there would ever be a holiday where they didn’t find themselves thinking about everyone they’d lost.

Around nine in the evening, they returned to Grimmauld place, with all but the ostensibly adult Weasleys (Molly and Arthur) and the next generation (just Victoire, for now), who was fast asleep by then anyway. Bill and Fleur were remarkably easygoing about leaving Victoire, which made sense, as she was such an easy baby, happy to be held by anyone. Percy’s wife was pregnant and they declined the invitation. Harry hated that he was relieved, but he still didn’t feel comfortable with Percy.

Within a few minutes of the entire clan stumbling slightly drunk through the Floo, the doorbell began to ring. Neville and Luna, and the Patil twins; a handful of Ron’s friends from Auror training. A few friends of friends. The liquor flowed freely and they stuffed themselves with snacks, every last one of them, promising that the New Year — no, the new century, the new millennium — would bring with it powerful new promises to defy the call of deep-fried carbohydrates. Blaise Zabini appeared with a couple of other very nervous-looking Slytherins in tow, expansive and cheerful, shaking everyone’s hands, being unnecessarily tall, and telling everyone who he met that he was at school with Hermione and that he’d never in his life understand why she hadn’t been sorted into Ravenclaw.

Not long after he arrived, Neville pushed a brown paper bag into Harry’s arms, blushing.

“What’s this, then?”

“Cuttings. Or… rather, dried branches. There’s good stuff in there, Harry, I promise. I think it’s brilliant that you’re going to be a wandmaker — brilliant! And if I can ever give you anything you need, I will.”

Harry gave him a quick hug of thanks. “And how’s _your_ apprenticeship?”

“Professor Sprout says I’m a natural at it,” Neville said, blushing proudly. “The Herbology part and the teaching part both. You don’t think she’d say that just to make me feel better, do you, Harry?”

Harry grinned widely.

“Hey, listen,” Harry said, drawing Neville away from the crowd a moment, clutching the paper bag to his chest. “You don’t know anything about Draco Malfoy, do you? Haven’t heard anything at Hogwarts, or…”

“I’m sorry, Harry,” Neville said, evenly. “I don’t. I haven’t even heard his name since his mum died.”

“Never mind. Let’s get you another drink. Did you try Blaise’s home-made gin?”

**2000**

So much learning, and every part of it thrilling.

Harry learned that there was no one way to make a wand. The materials knew what they needed; the hum of this piece of walnut called for dragon heartstring, which would not be coaxed to slither into the bore. The wood needed to be halved, instead, the core carefully stretched until the end of it kissed the tip of the wand, and then the wood needed to be closed again, and made whole, healed gently with warm touch and deep oiling.

He had begun to fall into a habit of working on several wands at a time, letting the wood and the core merge before it was time to return to them and discover what they were supposed to be, how they were supposed to feel.

Once the wand was almost a wand, a misshapen lump of wood with a core — it was desperate to funnel… well, _anything_ , anything at all. Harry could feel it. He felt the dragon herself. She had been old, strong, fiercely protective over generations before she’d died in a dark, cool valley surrounded by her daughters and granddaughters and great-granddaughters. It had been Charlie Weasley who had sent Harry the heartstrings. There had been tears blurring words on the parchment. Charlie protected and helped the dragons and they in turn let him harvest the parts of themselves that were useful to Wizardkind, before the family burned the remains.

It was a sense of the dragon that told Harry what sort of a wand he was making. Long and inflexible, sanded until it felt almost like metal in his fingers. A square base of only about a centimetre, and tiny flames that Harry carved around the lower shaft over several hours. It reminded him a little of Sirius’s wand.

Harry lost track of the time. He often did. Outside in Diagon Alley the rain fell heavily, and the thunder clapped, and lightning made the street as bright as day for a moment at a time. The dragon who had given her heartstring for this wand was pleased by it.

Ollivander shuffled into the workshop from the kitchen.

“Mr Potter,” he said. He reached for the wand, found its centre of balance, and gave it a regal little wave. “Exquisite work, my boy. Exquisite.” He brought the end of the wand to his eye, looking down toward the tip. Harry knew it was a wand that needed to be straight and it was. Ollivander’s hand shook a little. He passed the wand reverently back to Harry.

“It’s that time of the year, you know,” he said, looking out the window into the stormy streets. “Summer storms, and then… children from all over Europe will come to our store looking for their very first wands. I’ll finally be able to teach you.”

“Teach me what?” Harry said, joking gently. “Sounds pretty simple to me — I thought the wand chose the Wizard, sir.” He only smiled when Ollivander pretended to slap the back of his head.

“I’m looking forward to it,” Harry said. His newest wand was finished. He made a notation on the end of a long box (19” WN DH), laid out a soft piece of cloth, and nestled the wand gently into place. “I know no child ever forgets the first time they wave a wand. I want to learn everything I can.”

“What you’ll learn is that children are exhausting. So go home, Harry,” Ollivander said, patting his shoulder. His hand felt frail, too light, as if his body was clinging to his spirit instead of the other way around. “Take a couple of days and come back on Friday. And don’t forget to lock the door.”

Harry sat in the dim workroom for another half an hour, listening to the rain, and basking in the peace of his new life. And then, as he often did when he had the time and space to wonder, he thought about Draco Malfoy, and wondered where he was.

It had taken a little while for Harry to go from figuring out that he was indeed _as gay as a hat full of butterflies_ to embracing it. But he was, now — to borrow a Muggle expression — living his best life.

Saturday night, Harry ate Chinese food at Grimmauld Place with Ron and Hermione. The two of them were going to see a movie, afterwards, enjoying the last few weeks before Ron sat his exams and became a fully qualified Auror, and his hours became much less predictable. Harry, on the other hand, was planning to hit Muggle London and find himself someone to waste an evening with.

But first;

“Here, Hermione,” he said, passing her a new wand.

She examined it, and took a breath. “It feels so good,” she said. “Not right for me — it’s so… strong,” she said, frowning. “It feels as if it wants to build things.”

Harry grinned as she passed it back. “I can’t believe this is my life. D’you know, Ollivander thinks that the reason I have the gift is that I have mastered several wands, and wandless magic.”

“Wow,” Ron deadpanned. “I didn’t know that at all. You’ve never mentioned it eight hundred times. In fact I don’t think Ollivander has ever said anything that you didn’t repeat back to us later.”

Harry threw a chopstick at him, and Ron grinned.

“And when you’re in the shop? Still getting autograph hunters?”

Harry shook his head. “I’ve asked people to be respectful of my workplace. There’s still a few wankers around the place, but mostly, people do the right thing. It’s about the time we’ll start seeing first years coming in, though, buying their first wand.”

“Oh,” Hermione said with a sigh. “I’ll never forget that. The feeling when my wand came alive in my hand.”

They fought bitterly over the last two dumplings (a curse on whoever thought eight was a good number) and packed the leftover noodles away, knowing full well they’d be scarfing them down for breakfast in a few hours.

Harry stood up. “I’d better go,” he said. “You, too, if you’re going to make your film. What are you seeing?”

“It’s another super-hero movie,” Ron said, his eyes shooting up into his fringe. “X-Men. They’re like Wizards, except they can’t do as much, poor sods. And it’s because of… er… blood things. Merlin, Muggles come up with funny ideas. I’m in it for the popcorn, really. And a bit of a grope.”

Harry snickered.

“No need to ask where you’re going,” Hermione said smugly. “Those are your _pulling_ jeans. You’re hitting a bar or two. I suppose we’ll see you in the morning, whenever you manage to extricate yourself from some cheap Muggle flat in Camden.”

“I’m exploring my sexuality,” Harry replied, innocently. “Remember how it’s all my Mind Healer’s idea? Well, there you go. It’s therapeutic.”

The following morning Harry left a fleeting kiss on the sleep-warm lips of the man he’d just shagged stupid. “That was fun,” he said.

“It was. Maybe I’ll see you around again some time.”

“Hope so,” Harry said, and he was gone. He found somewhere out of the way to disapparate from and went home to change his clothes, presenting himself at Ollivander’s at nine sharp. He caught sight of himself in a mirror and blushed; he looked exactly like someone who’d gotten laid the night before. Well, maybe he wouldn’t be offered any marriage proposals that day.

They were busy, though most people were polite enough to let it be a moment for their children and leave Harry alone. He shared warm words with people he knew. He let himself be introduced to a series of awestruck eleven-year-olds, from as close as homes down the street to as far away as France and Turkey.

“Come on, Daisy — oh, would you stop trying to pull your hair from its braid, you look like a werewolf!”

Harry looked up into the bright and now startled eyes of Pansy Parkinson. For a moment, they stared at each other and didn’t say a word.

“Miss Parkinson,” he said, finally.

“Mr Potter,” she replied, with more caution than he had ever heard her use.

“Nice to see you again.”

Pansy raised an eyebrow. She’d never been big on being polite for the sake of being polite. “I’m sure it is,” she said. “I heard you were an Auror. Or the Minister for Magic, or the Headmaster of Europe, or something equally ridiculous. You’re a shop-boy?”

“Apprentice wandmaker,” he corrected. “I don’t think Europe has a Headmaster, but I rarely read the Prophet these days. And who is this?”

He gave the little girl gripping Pansy’s hand a smile, but she was too busy staring at the mountain of wands to notice him.

“My cousin. Daisy. Her mother is ill, so I said I’d bring her to do her Hogwarts shopping.”

Harry regarded the little girl. She was small, smaller than any of the girls who had come into the shop so far that day and most of the boys as well. She looked a lot like Pansy, without the bitter edges.

“I might have just the thing,” he said, waving at one of the upper shelves until a long silver box floated demurely into his hand. He removed the wand, and handed it to Daisy.

“You just need to give it a little wave,” he said, and she did, causing a sudden hot wind to wind through the shop. “Perhaps not. Alright, try this one.”

It was one of Harry’s, and a pretty thing. White oak and unicorn hair with a small rose quartz set into the handle. She looked dubious, but Harry smiled reassuringly, and she gave it a wave, making a sound of utter delight when rose-coloured sparks flowed from the end. “How does that feel?”

She was still utterly tongue-tied but her eyes were wide and bright, and colour tinted her cheeks.

“Sold,” Pansy said, opening her money bag to count out Galleons. “Listen, Potter — since I’m here anyway. I was wondering if you know where Draco is.”

Harry deflated, slightly. “I was going to ask you the same thing,” he admitted, quietly, taking the large coins and placing them in a money box under the counter.

“I haven’t seen him since… well, I tried to getting touch when his mother died, but…”

Harry wanted to point out cruelly that the only three people from their year at Hogwarts at the funeral had been himself, and Ron, and Hermione. He swallowed the acidic words down.

“And it’s not just me, either. Blaise, Nott, Bulstrode… well, if you see him,” Pansy said with a sigh. She took a scrap of parchment from the countertop and scribbled an address; sufficient for owls, anyway. “We should go. Lots to buy.”

Harry carefully folded a polishing cloth into the white box and settled the wand inside. “You’ll need to keep it tucked away until school starts, I’m afraid,” he said, as he passed it to Daisy. “Enjoy school, Miss Parkinson.”

Pansy paused for another moment.

“Since it doesn’t look like you’re planning to AK me for trying to hand your skinny arse over to the Dark — Vol —“ Pansy flushed. “You might as well call me Pansy,” she said.

“Alright. If you’ll call me Harry.”

“Is _that_ your name?” She smiled wickedly, and hurried her cousin out the door.

Harry sold twenty-two children their first wands, that day, and felt a warm glow every time their eyes lit up when they found the right one. Nine of them bought wands Harry had made himself, not that they knew it, and Harry floated home in the evening on a cloud of satisfaction.

**2001**

Sumer, again.

The warmer months meant that the bars were full: beer gardens stayed open later, students were on break from their studies, and Harry had made a masterful study of what sort of clothing was most likely to snag the attention of the tortured poetic type he liked so much. He was wearing his hair quite long, these days, and quite enjoying the way it curled at the ends. Slouchy-looking jeans and Doc Marten boots, ragged-looking band t-shirts (and no, he wasn’t a complete tosser; he did know the music, and quite liked it, actually).

He managed to sidle in amongst a group of good-looking Muggles about his own age. He was filing away details of their outfits — costumes, really — those two were definitely writing novels, these two were doing art they described as edgy and subversive and that involved gluing a lot of doll parts together. _This_ one was actually focused on his uni studies and genuinely as big a nerd as his glasses advertised, which was quite appealing.

It was one of the writers that Harry decided to hone in on. He stood too close, looked at the man’s mouth more often than was proper, and asked sensible questions about his _work_. Harry’s line in these situations was that he was an artist, that he explored wood and how it might be juxtaposed with other sorts of tissue. Also, part of his process was no one could see any work in progress.

“What sort of band is playing?” Harry asked.

His companion, who was already hooked, shrugged. “Post-post-pop punk, really, but they have a pretty high opinion of themselves and call it something else — I don’t know.”

His friend leaned in. “Blink-182 without all the optimism. And with more distortion.”

That painted a picture. “You’ve heard them before?”

A shrug. Lucas? Was it Lucas? Harry hadn’t been paying enough attention. “A couple of times.”

There was a spike of something in his demeanour; dishonesty, Harry thought. It had really only been a line, and he’d intended to follow it with a smooth ‘then do you want to get out of here?’. But Lucas was watching the band set up. He liked them. Or he liked one of them, anyway. Harry started to think he might be barking up the wrong tree. He bought a round of drinks.

It didn’t take the band very long to get set up again, after what must have been a sound check earlier. Harry cast a mild, wandless Muffliato just so his eardrums wouldn’t pop, and sipped his chocolate stout.

The band appeared as the lights went out, to be replaced by the typical strobing, flashing, colourful mess, and the lead singer (who had to be the focus of Lucas’s lusty gaze — well, fuck it, plenty of fit bodies in here tonight) grabbed the microphone, bringing it close to his face.

“We’re the Burnt Lips,” he said, and the drummer started.

It wasn’t really Harry’s kind of music. Not because it was Muggle, but because he preferred music that didn’t prevent people from talking to each other. Give him a couple of guys with acoustic guitars and dirty hair any day. But there was something compelling about them. He found himself staring at the guitar player’s back. Narrow and lean, but his arms were strong; his leather pants hung dangerously from his hips and his black tank top (which looked to have been ripped beneath one arm) made his pale neck look terribly fragile. All of him looked fragile, actually, except those arms; Harry could see where his ribs cut in, and his wrists were as fine and breakable as one of Harry’s more delicate wands. He was covered in tattoos, which Harry had briefly mistaken for a mesh shirt. They were all black, with what looked like a mess of thorny vines tangled around his arms, teasing the hair on the back of his neck.

Harry would have liked to look at them closer.

A _lot_ closer, actually.

He felt his cock stir, just slightly, and he almost didn’t notice when someone pushed a shot of something disgusting and sticky into his hand, but he downed it anyway.

The guitar player’s hair was cut very short, but it was a pale blond which reminded Harry of…

 _No_.

Something dangerous and cold gripped at Harry’s intestines, and as the song finished, the guitar player turned towards him, putting one guitar down and reaching for another.

“Draco,” he murmured, under his breath. He immediately regretted it; what if Draco heard him, and looked up? But the place was much too loud, and Draco was much too absorbed, testing his tuning in the four seconds he had before the singer started shouting incomprehensible lyrics into the microphone, and then he was off again.

It was hot in the club but Harry felt suddenly cold. Very, very cold. Gooseflesh rose on the back of his neck and his arms, and his mouth went dry. He swallowed the rest of his pint in a couple of mouthfuls and turned to order another one, but somehow, turning away from Draco was damn near impossible to do. So he didn’t bother, just stood leaning against the edge of the bar and watching.

“We’ve just got two more songs left for yeh,” the singer said, and Harry noticed the Scottish brogue he didn’t seem to sing with. “And we’ll let yehs be, right. This is Mikey on skins, Penny on bass, Draco on guitar and I’ve been Jackson. We’ve been the Burnt Lips.”

Harry slipped away past his new friends thanks to a quick and quiet Notice-Me-Not and he headed out onto the pavement. It was dark, and cooler, now. It didn’t take too long for him to figure out where the band moved their gear in and out. He stood unnoticed by the back door for a while, listening for any sign that his heartbeat might be starting to slow; but it wasn’t.

At last, they started coming out, with amplifiers and a drum kit and a tonne of things Harry didn’t recognise. A huge black tote bag full of… wires. Cords. There was probably a different word for them. Everything was piled into the back of a van with mismatched panels. Finally, Draco came out of the back door as well, a guitar case in each hand. He flipped the driver the bird, and the driver laughed, and the van was gone. And Draco Malfoy was lighting a cigarette in the rear alley behind a Muggle bar in Camden in leather pants that looked as if they’d been painted on. He dropped a backpack off his shoulder and fished out a hoodie that had seen better days, pulling it on without dropping his cigarette.

Harry missed the tattoos right away.

He knew he should leave. Which was the main reason he decided to act before he could chicken out.

“Draco,” he said, as Draco zipped up the front of his hoodie.

“Fuck off,” he replied, without looking up.

Harry cringed. “Draco — it’s me. Harry.”

Draco spun on the heel of his tattered old Converse sneakers but the urgency of the movement wasn’t reflected in his expression, which was equal parts cold and murderous.

“Potter,” he spat. “What in fuck’s name are you doing here. Back to following me around?”

Up close, Harry could see that Draco was wearing heavy eye makeup, and that he had sweated a lot of it off. Made him look like someone had swung by to corrupt his innocence or something, but Harry wasn’t sure that Draco had ever been allowed to have much of that. His eyes blazed. His skin was paler than ever, unless that was a trick of the light.

“War give you a spot of brain damage, Potter? I asked if you’ve been following me around again.”

It was strange. The last time they’d seen each other was at Narcissa’s funeral and though Harry hadn’t thought they’d been exactly warm with each other, they had been passably civil.

“No, I… I was just… glad to see you. Surprised. No one’s heard anything about you since…”

“Definitely still obsessed with me. I’m not doing anything wrong. I’m trying to live my life, and you’re not a part of it anymore. So if you could do me a favour, Potter, lift your bottom lip off the rat-piss flavoured asphalt and _go fuck yourself_.”

He hadn’t changed a bit. Harry felt the old anger flash. “Funny — when the rest of us grew up, I thought you might have, too. Guess not.”

Harry realised afterwards that he should not have dropped his guard, but he did. He had a moment to reflect on the unmistakable crunch of a broken nose as Draco punched him right in the middle of his face. By the time he had regained his balance, Draco was gone.

Harry hadn’t been expecting to go home, of course. Couldn’t bring a Muggle one-night stand back to Grimmauld Place without obliviating him afterwards and that just seemed so _rude_. But he hadn’t bet on finding Ron and Hermione watching television and drinking, either. He cursed himself for not having apparated to his own bedroom directly but Hermione was already off the couch and examining his face before he had a chance to say anything so much as ‘How was the movie?’

“What in Circe’s name happened to you?” she asked.

“It’s dot dat mad,” Harry replied, which in no way answered her question or appeared to reassure her. Okay, so he couldn’t talk properly and his head felt like it had swollen to twice its size — perhaps it was, indeed, ‘dat mad’.

Hermione drew her wand, and Harry clenched his teeth — Episkey was as painful as the nose breaking in the first place, but afterwards, Hermione cooled his overheated face with a quick charm and he felt a little bit better. Ron looked delighted, hanging over the back of the couch.

“Did you get into a fist fight, Harry? Fantastic! Oh, no, you weren’t trying to flirt with straight guys, were you? Did you get a good one or two in yourself?”

“He sucker-punched me,” Harry admitted. Ron passed him a beer as he dropped onto the couch.

“Fantastic,” Ron said again, grinning. “You’re like a proper Muggle sometimes, Harry. You’ll have to tell dad all about it.”

Harry snorted, and it hurt, so he elected not to do it again. Hermione returned from the downstairs bathroom with a wet facecloth. “Clean yourself up,” she said, not unkindly. “You’ve got blood all over your face. Now, what happened?”

“Did you tell a policeman?” Ron asked, his eyebrows high on his forehead. “I don’t expect they’re as clever as Aurors, but I still think it’s best to tell them. D’you think he’d go to jail?”

Harry laughed. “Oh, shut up, Ron. I came straight here. I’m fine.” Still unaccountably aroused. Still imagining that Draco had kissed him instead of punching him. But _fine_. “There’s nothing to tell. Some drunk wanker decided he didn’t like the look of me.”

Ron looked disappointed; Hermione looked like she knew he was lying. To her credit, she didn’t say a word.

“Think I’ll go to bed,” Harry said, before anyone could ask him any more questions.

It was the week after the new school term started that Harry arrived at Ollivander’s one morning and knew that there was something wrong. He called out, once, twice, three times, and there was no reply, not even a shifting in the air upstairs. Harry climbed the stairs slowly, with pain in his stomach, already quite certain of what he was going to find. Ollivander had seemed so at peace, the last few weeks. He hadn’t worked at all. He’d drunk cups of tea, eaten nothing but cake and biscuits, and sat on his little stone bench in the courtyard behind the store, eyes closed, soaking up the air and sun and wind.

He’d known it was the end, and now, he was gone.

The expression on his face was entirely peaceful. He looked as if he’d taken a book to bed, and simply died, right there.

Harry took a seat beside the bed and spent a few minutes just silently thanking Ollivander for finding him when he had. He hoped he had said often enough how grateful he was to the man for helping him to shape a life that was about creativity and magic, instead of violence and suspicion. He liked to think he had. He held that cool, papery hand and wondered how he was supposed to be feeling. Ollivander had been very clear that his life had been full, and that his only regret had been not finding an apprentice until so very late.

Who would know what to do? They’d never discussed it.

He tossed a pinch of powder into the Floo and kneeled on the hearth, calling out an address.

“Molly,” he said, when a familiar face came into sight. “Mr Ollivander passed away in the night. I think I need your help.”

Moments later she came through and held Harry tight. He didn’t cry. He felt as if he should, but he didn’t. Maybe it would happen later, or maybe he was just done crying when people died; there had been such a lot of it, after all.

“I’ll call his lawyers,” she said at last. “You mustn’t grieve too terribly, Harry, he had a very full life and he knew what was coming.”

Perhaps it _had_ been a full life. But there were days when Harry looked at him and saw him not in the shop but hunched on the ground in the Malfoy Manor dungeons, already looking like a ghost. Or in his bedroom at Shell Cottage with his hands shaking as he held a mug of tea, trying to warm himself up. The war had taken a lot from him.

His family arrived, and they transfigured his bed into a stone coffin to be placed in the Ollivander crypt. They sat around it, sharing stories, laughing, crying sometimes, and they never asked Harry to leave; they welcomed Ron and Hermione, as well, who sat on either side of Harry and comforted him, though he wasn’t sure he needed it.

When it was dark and arrangements had been made for his interment, Ollivander’s son, who had to be in his eighties himself, told Harry that the shop now belonged to him. He wouldn’t be drawn into an argument about it, either. None of them would; as Ollivander’s apprentice — though Harry supposed he wasn’t an apprentice anymore — she shop was his. If any of them had shown the inclination, it would have passed to them.

When Harry left that night, he felt the wards acknowledge him, and then, only then, did he feel a tear trickle down his cheek.

They had another party on New Year’s Eve. Harry surprised himself by inviting Pansy, and she surprised him by agreeing to come, and she brought Blaise with her, who didn’t look surprised at all when Pansy punched him in the dick for not telling her he’d been here before.

“The house looks amazing,” Blaise said, when he’d recovered, draping his cloak on a hat stand and looking around. “Have you finished, then? Want to show me around?”

Harry did — he couldn’t resist showing anyone around, if they showed the slightest bit of interest. With a grin on his face, he led Blaise up the stairs. “These old places make me laugh, you know. There’s the sitting room downstairs, and a sitting room up here —”

“You _Muggle_ ,” Blaise said. “The downstairs sitting room is a _parlour_. I need to bring you to my mother for etiquette lessons.”

“Er,” Harry replied.

“Actually, I won’t. You don’t know my mum, do you, Harry?” He didn’t, except by reputation. “There’s a very good chance you’d end up my next stepfather.”

“You do know I specialise in wands, Blaise,” Harry replied drily.

Blaise howled with laughter. “Yes, but I think stepdad number three did as well. Oh, there’s a summer room off the side — very nice. Show me the bedrooms, then? It really does seem like a lot of work, all of this. Lovely, though. There aren’t enough of the really old Wizarding homes left these days.” He stepped into one of the larger bedrooms. “Fantastic. It’s much too big for one person on his own, of course,” Blaise mused, and Harry’s stomach twisted.

The thought of Ron and Hermione moving away to their new house near the Burrow set off all sorts of contradictory feelings, when he let himself think about it at all. He had loved living with them so long, but he knew that after the wedding in February they would want time to be alone. Meanwhile, the shop was starting to feel more like _home_ than Grimmauld Place ever had.

“It’s strange, you know,” Harry said, opening the doors to a small balcony off the side of the bedroom. It was bitterly cold outside, but he cast a silent warming charm that made Blaise purr. “I started doing this place up because it’s mine. It’s mine because my godfather gave it to me. But it wasn’t a happy home for him, and now I realise I just fixed it up because I needed something to occupy me, right after the war when things were so spectacularly shitty.”

He leaned his elbows on the railing, and Blaise rested his arse against it, rubbing his hands together to keep them warm.

“You could sell it. I could sell it for you. Get you an excellent price.”

Harry shook his head. “The last thing I need is money.” He was silent for a few long moments. “I saw Draco.” Harry hadn’t meant to say it; he really hadn’t. It just tumbled from his lips, a truth he’d been needing to tell for months, now. Blaise said nothing, but he visibly tensed.

“Is he alright?”

“He broke my nose. I think we’d have to call that status quo.”

Blaise laughed, but there was something thin in the sound. “If you see him again…”

“I know where to find you,” Harry said. “Come see what I’ve done with the attic, and then we can go and get pissed.”

**2002**

In the last week of January, Harry helped Ron and Hermione move into their new house. In the first week of February, Ron and Hermione helped Harry move into the rooms above the shop, which was… a much better size for one person to live in, but which still had a couple of spare rooms for visitors, and a large attic where he could keep all of Sirius’s things.

In the third week of February, Ron and Hermione got married at the Burrow, protected from the gentle snow by warming charms and surrounded by everyone they loved. It was a simple ceremony. Hermione cried a little because she had never been able to bring herself to fetch her parents back, and she missed them, but Ginny and Luna and Fleur took good care of her, like the lovely obliging bridesmaids they were. Harry, Bill and Charlie were Ron’s groomsmen — Percy had his hands full with two small children and a tired-looking wife, which was fortunate, as Ron hadn’t really wanted to ask him. They were leaving their honeymoon until Hermione graduated in May and got ready to start her two-year legal internship.

(“Which is really just a fancy way of saying I’ll be expected to do all the grunt work for a pittance,” she’d said drily, more than once. “Lucky I’m much smarter than Blaise. I’ll swap jobs with him, so he gets the easy stuff and I get to actually learn.”

Harry, drunk, had repeated this back to Blaise one night. Blaise had roared with laughter and said he thought he was getting rather the better deal, there.)

In the first week of March, Harry helped Andromeda and Teddy to move into Grimmauld Place. She’d said _no_ repeatedly from January first until he brought her there one weekend and showed her that the place was as clean and airy as anything she could have imagined, that no scrap of darkness clung to the corners of the rooms. He’d showed her how Teddy could have a good large playroom and if, as they worried, he began to change on the full moon when he turned eleven, they could set aside a safe room for him.

Andromeda cried, a little. She hugged a lot. She talked about how it might be nice to be able to spend time with some of her old friends, now that Tom Riddle was dead.

Over dinner at the Leaky the weekend after Harry had settled Andromeda and Teddy into their new home, he and Ron and Hermione had talked about how strange things were.

“Do you know,” Hermione said, running a finger around the rim of her glass, making it sing. “There are days when I think I’m healthy.”

“Healthy as an ox,” Ron agreed. “Did you worry?”

“I meant _mentally_ ,” Hermione said, giving Ron’s thigh a squeeze. “I didn’t think there would ever come a day when I would climb into bed and realise I hadn’t thought about the war a single time since I’d woken up.”

Ron’s mouth flew open. “Me, too. I think I like being busy, that suits me. D’you know what Auror O’Toole said, he said —”

“You’ve a rare mind for strategy, boy-o!” Harry and Hermione said in unison. Ron blushed.

“Well, he did,” Ron said. “And I think he’s right. I decided to become an Auror because Harry was, too. But I think you might have been right, Harry.”

“It’s not for me,” Harry said. He raised his glass. “And it never was. To finding our places in the world,” he added festively. And suddenly, he thought of Draco Malfoy in tight leather pants, playing guitar on stage with his eyes heavily rimmed in kohl. He hoped that in one way or another, Draco had found his place, too.

In the summer, with children coming to buy their wands, Harry was so busy he had to hire a shop assistant. He hired a Hogwarts student, Ellie Greenteeth, whose parents were both Healers at St Mungo’s. She was intelligent and friendly and reminded him of Hermione, her head in a book every time she had a spare minute. She was in Slytherin. She’d told him so with her chin held high, daring him to assume she ate kittens for dessert or something, but Harry only nodded.

“I was nearly sorted into Slytherin myself,” he said. “Is it fun, sleeping under the lake? D’you ever see the giant squid?”

“I sometimes think I’ve seen some of his legs,” she said, surprised and pleased. “I see seahorses a lot, though. They’re so sweet, the way they gallop along in groups, with their green manes flying. And the baby Grindylows, until their parents come to chase them home. And when the weather is warm you sometimes hear the mermaids sing, did you know that?”

“Better underwater than on dry land,” Harry said, remembering the awful screeching in his golden egg when he was trying to figure out the third clue for the Tri-Wizard Tournament.

“I want to be a magi-zoologist when I grow up,” she confided, eyes wide. “D’you think you could introduce me to Luna Lovegood? Only I know you’re close.”

Ellie and Harry were fast friends after that. She also had a glare that would settle anyone who wanted to come and make a fuss over Harry. It was of the Molly Weasley school of glaring and it was very, very effective.

The days and nights ran together. Ollivander had never quite recovered his stock levels after the shop had been destroyed in the war, and Harry worked long hours trying to build their supplies up again. While the shop was open, Harry taught Ellie how to ring up the purchases and package up the wands while he focused in helping the children connect with one. He listened to the children quietly telling him their fears about not knowing anyone at Hogwarts, not making friends, not being in Ravenclaw like their mum had been or Hufflepuff like their dad. Some of them came back again a couple of times before the school year started just to have the same soothing conversations with Harry a second time, and a third.

There was something else about the shop, too, something Harry hadn’t anticipated.

When he had been somewhat reclusive, every time he appeared in public he was swamped with people who wanted to talk to him. Now that he was accessible, he was beginning to be just another British Wizard living in Diagon Alley. People thought of him as an excellent wand maker first, and Harry Potter second, and that was how he liked it.

The days grew shorter, and the nights longer, but twice a week without fail Harry had dinner with Ron and Hermione; sometimes at the Leaky Cauldron, sometimes at their house in Ottery St Catchpole. Sometimes they went to Grimmauld Place to watch Teddy grow up, but Harry always spent time there without them, as well. Sometimes they ate in the kitchen at the shop.

And one night, when Ron had been called away on some kind of Auror business, Hermione came to visit on her own. Unscheduled. At first, Harry thought she was worried about Ron, but when she produced Thai food and beer he realised she just wanted to talk to him alone.

“Harry,” she said, earnestly.

“Hermione,” he replied, imitating her tone.

She sighed, and picked vegetables out of her noodles. “You stopped going out. And I know I wasn’t the most supportive of you just… shagging random Muggle boys…”

Harry laughed.

“Well, I wasn’t. And I know it’s not fair. Not many people fall in love at fourteen and stay that way for the rest of their lives. But Harry — you’ve seemed so terribly lonely.”

Harry’s stomach twisted uncomfortably. “How could I be? I’m busy. I have you two, and Teddy — and I’m not a hermit,” he added pointedly. “I see my friends. Neville, and even your incorrigible friend Blaise… did you know Pansy and I have coffee together at least twice a week? I’m not lonely, Hermione.”

She didn’t look deterred.

“Last summer when you got into that fight. I think — and tell me if I’m wrong — I think that was the last time you ever headed out to, uh, sow your wild oats.” She blushed loudly. “Did something happen, that night? I know Muggles can be…”

Harry shook his head. “It wasn’t like that. It just happened. And after that, _so much_ happened. I just got busy.”

“Well, have you thought about taking a different approach? Dating, perhaps? I know Blaise likes you —”

“Blaise likes anyone who can hold their own in a battle of wits and fill out a pair of jeans. Really, Hermione — stop this. It’s all fine. I have no interest in dating Blaise Zabini, quarter-Veela, or anyone else, for that matter.”

He saw Draco in his mind’s eye; the short hair that still looked like it would be soft, the kohl-dark eyes, pale grey irises and the unfettered anger on his face. He hated how often he thought of it. Harry’s hair fell over his shoulder and he reached back absently to tie the lot of it into a loose bun at the top of his head.

“When did you stop being able to talk to me, Harry?” Hermione said.

“But I do,” he replied, confused. “You know me better than anyone. Better than Ron does, really.”

“What happened that night?”

He wondered how long she’d been holding this in. He could say it, just say it. Out loud. He could say, ‘I saw Draco Malfoy, and he broke my nose again’. Tell Hermione about his soft-looking buzz cut and the cigarette he’d held between his fingers and the way he’d poured all of his rage into that guitar. The way he’d flipped off the driver of the van — Harry couldn’t even remember, now, if it had been the drummer or the singer — and the way his eyes had narrowed.

The way he’d spat _Potter_ like a curse.

The worst thing of all: the way Harry had wanted to reach for him, wrap his arms around Draco, kiss that pale, fragile throat. Rescue him from whatever the fuck was going on.

Instead, he sighed, and reached across the table to close his fingers around Hermione’s wrist.

“I love you,” he said. “You know that, right?”

Hermione held his gaze. She looked tired, suddenly. But she forced a smile. “I know. And I love you, too. I guess I just wish that you could find a way to love _yourself_ a little more.”

They found their way to simpler topics, and Hermione slept in the spare room. She didn’t like being alone, when Ron was away.

November was colder than usual. Colder than anticipated. No snow — there was almost never snow this early — but there was cold rain, and sleet, and hail. Harry closed the shop. It wasn’t the time of the year to buy wands, and anyone in need of a replacement sent an owl to arrange an appointment. Harry was happy about it. It had been some time since he’d been able to truly bury himself in work; the workshop was a riot of wands in various states of unfinished, and Harry was working on a new wand of his own, as well. Holly, slightly springy, 13-1/2” long, core of Hippogriff feather.

He had happened upon his collection of feathers the week before, and that first wand with Kneazle whisker. He had begun to make notes about the attributes of various cores and possible cores and had begun planning a research study. He was considering getting permission from the Ministry to requisition certain materials that were otherwise difficult to get hold of. His mind had run away with him, over the last several days. Understanding what he did now about how a wand did nothing but focus power — and that there was some sympathetic vibration between the wand and the bearer — he was now wondering if there might be wands that would be fit for specific purposes, like healing. Healers might use one wand at home and another at work, for example. And so much more. What if the right wand could grant limited magic even to a Squib? Or someone who had lost their magic due to illness?

What if he could include a charm in the wood that would prevent the user from causing harm? Was that even ethical?

Ollivander had been skeptical when Harry had begun coaxing stones to settle into the wood; caging themselves at the base of the handle, or snaking their way up the shaft. But when he had seen how it worked, he had smiled at Harry with his eyes horribly bright and kissed his forehead, which was high praise.

He wrote Luna a brief note.

_Dear Luna,_

He wrote.

_I hope you are well, and can read my atrocious handwriting. I am conducting some research on wand cores, and I need samples to experiment with — feathers, fur, nothing that would cause harm. Heartstrings, but of course only from animals that have died from natural causes. I wonder if you would be willing to donate some?_

_If this request makes you uncomfortable, or if your charges are unwilling to be involved with the matters of Wizarding folk, please disregard, with no hard feelings._

He paused for a moment, concerned, and then smiled to himself.

_Or rather, respond either way; it’s been an age since we got sozzled at the Leaky. Thursday, maybe? Or come over and watch a penguin documentary with me — I got the TV working at last._

_Yours always,_

_Harry._

“Scamp?” he called, and the owl descended from the rafters. She was still a funny little thing, not very dignified, but embarrassed by her indignities. She would enjoy a good long scratch around the neck and then bite, hard, reminding Harry that she was the boss. Like a cat, Harry supposed.

He had a rather odd certainty that Draco would be just the same.

“Can you take this to Luna Lovegood in the morning, please?” he asked, offering up a peanut butter cracker, Scamp’s favourite. Scamp gave him an affectionate nip at the base of his thumb, and as soon as the letter was tied to her foot, she was gone. She would fly to Luna’s home, do some hunting along the way and then sleep a couple of hours, delivering the note as soon as Luna woke up.

Harry looked around the workroom. There were things he could do, plenty of them, but he had learned to trust when his body felt ready to be finished for the night. It was after eleven, after all.

He locked the workroom door, and the door to the shop, and murmured _Nox_ to turn out all of the lights. And he made his way up the stairs to his bedroom. He thought he’d read for a little while and then go to sleep.

Sleep was elusive. The sheer power of the rain and sleet rendered silencing charms rather useless. But Harry found the tattoo on the rooftop calming, and his head was full of ideas, so he didn’t mind the sleeplessness. It was different from back when he was afraid to sleep because of the nightmares.

He found himself thinking about the conversation he’d had with Hermione. About… dating. Fuck, what a terrible thought, but while Harry could insist to Hermione that he wasn’t lonely, he couldn’t deny it to himself. He was lonely, but the thought of dressing up and heading to a Muggle bar and finding someone to waste a few lovely hours with didn’t feel right.

He thought about Blaise, for about eight seconds, and then realised he really, really couldn’t. He thought about Draco, and slipped his hand into his pyjama pants, softly rolling his cock in his hand, coaxing it to fullness. And then he heard it:

**BAM.**

He sat bolt upright, all thoughts of arousal gone. Maybe for a moment he had imagined the war; but no, there was just that one sound, and then silence. He didn’t even know where it had come from.

“If that’s a Boggart,” he said loudly, “I shall be cross.”

Silence. He lay back against the pillow and closed his eyes.

 ** _BAM._** Louder, this time.

He sat up again. He reached for the wand he was using lately and stepped into his slippers. Downstairs, because he was starting to think it was the front door of the shop.

**_BAM. BAM. BAM._ **

“Alright,” he called, hurrying now. He pictured Ron, hurt. Hermione, afraid. Andromeda, suddenly trapped with a four-year-old werewolf. He hurtled down the stairs, shivering, and stopped short at the front door. The blinds were closed from the inside.

_Bam._

The next knock sounded terrifyingly exhausted. Harry ran across the wooden floorboards and opened the door without even looking out. There was someone on the front step; homeless? Hurt? He pulled the door open the rest of the way and pulled the body inside. _Body_. Freezing cold, terribly underdressed for the weather —

With short, spiky blond hair and very pale skin. With dark makeup smudged all around his eyes, and tattoos questing up from the neck of his t-shirt. Harry dropped to his knees.

“Draco?”

Draco rolled over, with some difficulty.

“Potter,” he said, his voice cracking painfully. “Help.” And then his eyes fell closed again.

It took Harry some time to dry Draco’s clothes with warming charms, once he had him in front of the fire in the workshop. He seemed to slip in and out of consciousness, but he didn’t speak again, and eventually, whispering soothing words, Harry managed to reach for Draco, touch him, hold his arm.

“I’m going to take you upstairs,” he said, and apparated them both as gently as he could to one of the spare rooms.

Draco didn’t move, didn’t respond. Harry thought he would be better off changing into pyjamas but once he had managed to work Draco’s boots off his feet he was too exhausted to try anything more complicated. And the thought of touching Draco’s body, in however innocent a way, felt like a violation.

He opened the wardrobe and pulled down three quilts, casting warming charms between each one, slowly burying Draco in a pile of patchwork. He spoke soothing nonsense the whole time, resisting the urge to ask questions. Draco couldn’t have answered them, and he was worried Draco might disappear in the night if he felt cornered. He didn’t seem to be asleep, though, or not completely asleep, anyway; his eyes were sometimes open a crack, and sometimes squeezed shut, as if he was trying to stay in his head, trying not to acknowledge the world at all.

It felt inhumane to leave him like that, even if he did seem to want to be alone, so Harry transfigured a small armchair into a much bigger one that could be stretched out almost flat. He reasoned that Draco had, after all, asked for help.

“I won’t leave,” he promised Draco’s now-closed eyes, in case he was still awake, or semi-conscious. He pressed a warm hand to Draco’s cold cheek. “I’m right here.”

Once he was settled in his armchair, the leg rest out all the way and the back reclined, Harry pulled the last quilt over himself and waited for sleep to take him.

Harry woke in the morning with absolute awareness of everything that had happened. No long, slow moments before he remembered, no gradual recollection; he woke, and he immediately knew that Draco Malfoy was in his home, and that he needed help. _Badly_. Badly enough to have asked the person he hated most in the world for it. Harry pushed himself up onto his feet and crossed the room to the bed. Draco, mercifully, appeared to still be asleep. Deeply asleep. Harry ran his fingers over that silky, spiky head, but Draco’s eyes didn’t so much as flutter. He had to be completely fucking exhausted. Under the last of his makeup Harry could see dark shadows under his eyes. They looked like bruises.

Harry crouched by the bed, examining Draco’s face more closely. He didn’t seem to be injured, but Draco had always been better at low-power, high-focus spells such as those needed for healing than Harry ever would be. Maybe he had been injured. Maybe he had healed himself and then come here, though Harry realised he hadn’t seen Draco’s wand.

He was itching to wake Draco up and ask what was happening. He didn’t, for the same reason he hadn’t the night before. Harry was reasonably sure Draco would vanish without a trace if he felt harassed, and then he’d never know what this — all of this — had been about.

So he headed downstairs into the kitchen to make breakfast, instead. A ridiculous breakfast, a couple of steps beyond a full English; bacon, sausages, eggs, mushrooms, hash browns, toast, spinach, and a little bowl of baked beans in case Draco hated anything wet touching his toast, like Harry did. Tea, coffee, orange juice, pumpkin juice. He took an enormous tray up to the room, levitating it ahead of himself, and set it on the side table, casting warming charms on the food and the mugs and cooling charms on the juices. And then he headed into his workshop, battling alternating waves of anticipation and trepidation.

He wondered if he should call someone. A Healer, maybe, just to check him over. Pansy or Blaise, as they’d been so close. Hermione, because she was the smartest person Harry knew. Maybe even Molly, since — and he’d never admit to Draco that it had ever crossed his mind — Draco seemed direly in need of a parental figure of some sort. It seemed very strange, to think that Draco Malfoy was sleeping upstairs in Harry’s guest room and nobody knew. He wondered who was missing him. Perhaps he could find out how to contact the band, though that seemed very risky as well; for all Harry knew, they were Muggles, and if so, they probably had no idea about Draco.

Harry had work to do, anyway.

The first time the bell over the door rang Harry’s heart began to race, his pulse almost painful in his throat, certain that it was Draco escaping; but it wasn’t. It was an older woman whom Harry had met several times; she had been a political correspondent for the Prophet, until she had retired to write romance novels. She was very good at it.

“Mrs Anand,” he said, with a smile. “You are a vision, as usual.” Resplendent in a very bright purple sari. “How is the book going?”

“Finished. I’ll bring you one when I receive my brag copies,” she promised. She handed over a long wooden case. “I’m here because of this. It’s not my wand, but it has been passed down for several generations, and it is used in certain private, traditional rituals,” she said. Not her usual cheerful self. Harry opened the box, and immediately felt the problem. He lifted it and placed it on a stand.

“It has stopped responding,” she said, wringing her hands.

“Yes,” Harry said, holding his hand over the wand, feeling the magical signature.

“You do these tests wandlessly?”

Harry nodded. “Yes. Otherwise, the signatures can get tangled up.” No need to tell her that a deep understanding of the function of wands had made them almost completely unnecessary for him. He raised his eyebrows. “Is it — the core. Is it the quill of a peacock feather?”

Mrs Anand nodded. She looked as if she’d been surprised, and then decided she shouldn’t be, and then decided she was, just the same. “Very good, Mr Potter. I know they are not used in Britain.”

“I’ve been trying all sorts of things,” he admitted. “But I haven’t seen — are they special, to your family?”

She nodded, but seemed disinclined to elaborate, so he returned to his study.

“It is cracked,” he said. “Severed in the centre. I’m afraid it does happen, with heirloom wands. I could repair it…”

Overhead, he heard a scraping on the wooden floor. So did Mrs Anand, who looked up.

“Er,” he said.

“Indeed,” she replied, giving him a shrewd look.

“Oh, no,” Harry said, shaking his head. “A friend spent the night. In the guest room. I’d forgotten, for — anyway,” he said, when she looked worryingly like she might start asking questions. Mrs Anand still had a lot of friends at the Prophet. “I could repair her, though it would be a very delicate job, and I don’t believe that she would ever be able to focus and channel magic properly again. I could put her in stasis, so you could display her as an heirloom.”

Mrs Anand waited a moment. She had heard the third possibility in Harry’s inflection. She tipped her head slightly. “Or?”

Harry sighed. “Or, I could do my best to reproduce her. I’ve been finding that sometimes, using materials that are special to a family produces extraordinary results. If you have more of these feathers… anyway,” he said, casting eyes to the ceiling again as something broke. “You might wish to think about it, Mrs… I’m so sorry, I really need to check on my guest. Would you like to take this with you, and discuss it with your family?”

“Yes,” she said, carefully placing the wand back in the box. “I do hope your friend is alright, Mr Potter.”

She looked so knowing that Harry couldn’t hold her gaze. He bid farewell and locked the door with a gesture, flipping the open sign to closed, and forced himself to take the stairs one at a time.

Draco was sitting up in the bed, white as a ghost —… well, whiter than usual, despite the smudged eyeliner. Or maybe that made it look worse, Harry wasn’t really sure. He had the mug of tea in his hands.

The mug of coffee was broken, on the floor, as were the shards of the mirror he had thrown it at. He looked like he was trying to appear collected, even disinterested, but he was shaking.

“I see you’re awake,” Harry said.

“Always so observant,” Draco muttered in a thin, reedy voice. Harry gestured at the mess, murmuring _Reparo_ under his breath. He didn’t miss the way Draco closed his eyes. He probably wasn’t upset that the mug was fixed. It had to be the mirror. Harry took a blanket from the closet and covered it up, using a sticking charm to make sure it stayed that way. He picked up the mug, and vanished the spilled coffee before it could mark the floorboards.

“Are you alright?”

It was a stupid question. _Beyond_ stupid. Still, it seemed more polite than ’ _what the fuck is wrong with you, Draco Malfoy, and what were you thinking showing up here last night?_ ’

Draco didn’t look at him. He sipped his tea, instead, and glanced at the breakfast tray. Harry might have wondered if he was about to say something rude about the service here (which would be ideal, as it would give Harry the opportunity to toss him out on his lily-white arse) but a moment’s consideration suggested something else. Draco was starving hungry, ravenous: he just didn’t think he could eat.

Or maybe he didn’t think he could eat that.

“Is there something you’d prefer?” Harry asked, quietly. Draco looked away from the tray, and shook his head. “You should try to eat a little. Or drink the juice, at least. The sugar might do you some good.”

Draco stared at the tray for a few more moments. “Maybe you could refresh the warming charms,” he said, quietly. Seemed very strange for him not to do it himself, but Harry wasn’t going to poke at him about it. He just did it.

“You don’t have your wand?” he asked, gently. Draco shook his head. He looked like he tried to sneer, as well, but failed. “I could bring you one. Or you could come down and pick one out.”

Draco set the tea back on the tray. “I’m tired,” he said, and buried himself under the quilts again.

Harry waited a few moments, and then sighed. He looked through his clothes. Draco had a good six inches on him, but there was a pair of jeans that Ron had left a few weeks ago. They’d be loose around the waist, but no one excelled at tailoring spells like Draco did. (Well. And Pansy and Blaise. Bunch of slick gits.) He found a white t-shirt that wasn’t too worn-out looking; this one was Harry’s. Although he couldn’t actually imagine Draco — this Draco, with his buzzcut and tattoos and makeup — wearing a cardigan, but Harry fished one out just the same, a warm dark brown, soft and comfortable. Socks. A pair of boxer shorts (luckily, he had a new pair that still had the tags — he didn’t want Draco shredding them in an offended rage). He left them on the dresser in the bathroom, along with a clean towel and a fresh bar of soap.

He knocked gently on Draco’s door, and waited a moment before he opened it. All he could see was the lump under the quilts where Draco had buried himself.

“I’ll be downstairs if you need me,” he said, gently. “There’s fresh towels and clean clothes in the bathroom, if you want to take a bath. I have to open the shop again.”

There was a grunt, that was all. Harry hesitated, closed the door, and headed downstairs again.

The day felt unbelievably long. Unfathomably. Harry gave up on his wand-making pursuits before lunch, knowing full well his energy was too scattered to really understand what the raw materials were trying to tell him. But the shop was quiet, and all Harry could really do was try to read, and listen — hard — to his rooms above the shop, wondering if Draco would come down when he was ready to talk, or if he’d climb out a window and disappear again. Or if he might be upstairs waiting for Harry just as Harry was downstairs waiting for him.

When the night fell, and the rain started up again, Harry sighed, and locked the door, drew the curtains against the shop windows. He crept up the stairs with a bundle of boxed wands under his arm, and paused on the landing. He knocked gently on the door.

“Draco?”

“It’s open,” Draco replied, sounding exhausted.

Harry opened the door. Most of the gaslights were off, just the one by the picture window illuminated. Draco sat on the wide, padded windowsill with his feet bare, and the old, worn cardigan hanging from his spare frame, arms looped around his knees. He looked like he’d been watching the rain, and Diagon Alley, for a good long time.

“How are you feeling?” Harry asked.

Draco looked like he was searching for something cutting to say and then his shoulders dropped minutely. “Better,” he admitted.

“Did you manage to eat anything?”

Harry was still standing in the doorway, unsure of whether he should invite himself in.

“A little.”

“Good.” Harry took a tentative step inside the room. “I thought I mind send for a curry for supper. If you…?”

Draco pulled the sleeves of his cardigan — Harry’s cardigan — down over his hands. “Aren’t you going to ask me what I’m doing here, Potter? Haven’t you got a handful of nosy Gryffindors downstairs waiting for the gossip?”

“I haven’t asked you yet,” Harry answered, drily. “I’ll get the curry. You can eat or not, it’s up to you. I thought you might need a wand.” He gestured at the boxes with his free hand. “I remember the resonance of your —”

“No, thank you,” Draco said. More like the old Draco, polite to adults (and in front of adults) than the version who had broken Harry’s nose only a few months ago. “I don’t use magic anymore.”

Harry felt as if he’d gone deaf, for a moment. “You don’t —”

Draco held his eyes, challenging. And Harry realised it truly wasn’t any of his business. He was unaccountably glad that Draco was there, in his house, even if he was being especially obtuse. But what Draco chose to share with him, or not, was up to him.

“If ever you find yourself ready to talk about this, I’ll be ready to listen,” Harry said, with a shrug. “It’s your choice. I’ll let you know when dinner is in.”

He closed the door behind him and called out for Scamp, tying his order to her foot and offering her a scrap of dried meat as compensation.

It didn’t feel like the sort of evening where the dining table was appropriate. Harry spread the food out on the coffee table in the upstairs sitting room with a couple of bowls, in front of the television (it had taken him almost a year to figure out how to shield it from all the magic in the house, but it worked fine now) and opened a couple of bottles of beer. He was about to knock on Draco’s door — the guest room door — when it opened, and Draco stepped out like a very tall ghost, drawn in by the smell, or perhaps by the sound of the television.

“I got a variety,” Harry said, waving at the ridiculous spread. “I never know what I’m going to want until it’s in front of me.” He sat on the floor with his back against the couch and reached for a pakora, dipping it in a spicy raita. He looked at the television rather than Draco. Draco was too easy to look at and the TV was a rotten distraction, but he made a valiant attempt.

After a little while, Draco sat beside him carefully, and reached for a bowl, spooning a little of everything into it.

“Thank you,” he mumbled. Harry passed him a beer, and clinked the bottle against his own. There. That was a friendly gesture. Right?

“You’re still very, very odd, Potter,” Draco said, and Harry snorted a laugh.

“Thank you. I take that as a compliment, these days. And for the record, you’re quite odd yourself.”

Draco took a moment, and then shrugged, having apparently elected not to take offence.

“Just so’s you know, I haven’t told anyone you’re here. Not even Blaise or Pansy. It’s up to you, really. But you should probably know now that they are friends of mine, and they tend to show up unannounced.”

Draco looked perplexed by this, but dismissed his reaction after only a moment. “What happened to the Manor?” he asked, after a long time spent silently eating. He was, indeed, starving, Harry could see, but seemed to be having trouble, eating only tiny mouthfuls and resting in between. He looked gaunt. Perhaps he’d been hungry for a long time. All he’d eaten from breakfast was the bacon.

Harry chewed his lip for a moment, hesitant.

“Potter, I handed the title over to the Ministry. I hardly expected them to turn it into a museum honouring my illustrious family’s contributions to Wizarding society.”

Harry shrugged. “Alright. It took them some time to clean it out. There was a lot of…” No point in finishing that sentence. “But with the beautiful grounds, and the clean air — they moved the Janus Thickey Ward there. St Mungo’s needed the space, and so did the ward. That takes up the west wing. The east is an orphanage. There were a lot of children…”

No point in finishing _that_ sentence, either. Harry chanced a look at Draco. He’d never been any good at concealing his emotions. Apparently that hadn’t changed. A tear rolled down his cheek, despite his attempt to keep his face neutral, and Harry looked away.

They were silent for a while.

“And the others? The Tuscany house, and the one in France —”

“Sold,” Harry said. “The money was more helpful than the properties could have been. You did a good thing, you know.”

Draco snorted.

“No, you did,” Harry said, and he had a hand on Draco’s arm before he could think it through. Right over the Dark Mark. He pulled away again, slowly, embarrassed.

“Too little,” Draco said, dully. “And too fucking late by half.”

Harry had nothing to say to that. He took another bottle of beer and chilled it, passing it to Draco once it was open.

“Why did you let me in?”

“Why did you come here?”

Draco turned back to the television. How many times, Harry wondered, would Muggles re-hash the tales of Sherlock Holmes and Dr Watson? He wasn’t really watching, but it was a comforting sort of noise, and the sound of the rain by itself might have felt too sad right now.

“Because I had nowhere else to go,” Draco said at last, and took a long pull off his beer.

“Well, then, I guess that’s why I let you in.”

“Fucking Gryffindor,” Draco snorted, and Harry chose to take that as a compliment as well.

The days went by. Luna replied that dinner at the Leaky would have to wait until she was back from a trip to Iceland to look for ice bats (Harry wasn’t sure they existed, but Luna was frequently right about things like that and Harry had learned not to assume _anything_ ). Saturday was busy in the shop. Draco was a ghost upstairs, sleeping a lot, eating a little, and keeping out of sight.

Harry thought about begging off Sunday lunch at the Weasleys’, but knew if he did, Hermione would show up wanting to know why. And Molly would send him a mournful note about how it wasn’t the same when he wasn’t there. Sunday morning found him hesitating by the downstairs Floo while his eyes were drawn over and over again to the upstairs landing. Draco had only just emerged for his morning pot of tea and to cast an eye over the Daily Prophet.

Harry was almost knocked off his feet when Ron and Hermione stepped through.

“It’s frightful out there,” Hermione said, throwing her arms around him. “How was your week?”

“Er,” Harry said, and then Hermione was pulling away and taking off her gloves. Ron shook his hand. Upstairs it felt as if the entire house had taken a deep breath and didn’t intend to let it go. “I was going to meet you at the Burrow,” Harry said. This would be it. If Draco heard these two he’d definitely climb out a window and run away and Harry would never find out what had happened.

“Mum and Dad are in Romania, visiting Charlie,” Ron said, with a frown. A moment later, Ginny stepped out of the Floo as well, with a big smile on her face and a dramatic undercut on one side of her head. “Gin! I heard you’re the starting Seeker next week?”

“And every week after that,” she growled, grinning ferally. “You just see if I’m not.” She threw her arms around Harry as well, and he wished momentarily that he ever paid any attention to the calendar that Hermione painstakingly updated for him whenever she came by.

“How about we go and get some lunch, then?” Harry said, panic sharpening his voice. “The Leaky, perhaps.”

“In this weather? It’ll be packed to the rafters and it’ll take two hours to get fed. We’ll just eat here.”

“Oh, but… I haven’t tidied up,” Harry argued. Hermione looked around the spotless shop.

“Merlin’s liver-spotted arse,” Ginny said suddenly, her eyes lighting up. “Harry has a bloke here. Is it anyone we know, Harry?”

“No, I — Ginny, there’s no one up — Gin!”

But she was up the stairs, and Ron was only a moment behind her, and Hermione shot Harry an apologetic look. “You should have owled," she said. “You know what those two are like, Harry…”

A deathly silence had come over the shop, the house, and possibly all of Diagon Alley. Harry sighed, and closed his eyes, and climbed the stairs with Hermione trailing behind him.

“Harry,” Ginny said. “I think I’m hallucinating Draco Malfoy on your couch.”

“You’re not hallucinating,” Harry said. “Alright, Draco?”

Draco pulled Harry’s cardigan tight around his body and nodded. He had his feet curled up beneath him and the Prophet curled tightly in one fist. He looked like he wanted to escape, but he could very easily have hidden in his bedroom when he heard them downstairs, so Harry couldn’t feel too sorry for him.

“Harry,” Ginny said. “Why is Draco Malfoy on your couch?”

She didn’t sound angry. Just intrigued. Four sets of eyes turned to Harry, and he sighed again.

“He’s staying with me for a while.”

Someone needed to do something. Say something. Break this unbelievably tight silence. And of course, it was Hermione.

“Well,” she said, taking off her heavy coat and hanging it on the rack. “Ron and I will start lunch, then. I hope you’re hungry, Draco.”

Ginny dropped onto the couch by Draco. “And I’ll drag all the gossip out of this one while you do it.”

“Seven hells you will,” Ron said. “Come on, Gin, leave him alone to get used to the idea of eating a civil lunch with a bunch of Gryffindorks. You can chop something.” He dragged her by the wrist out to the kitchen and Harry sighed again, and sat down.

“I’m sorry,” Harry said. “I’d completely forgotten they were coming here, or…”

“Or what? You would have cancelled? You don’t owe me a thing, Potter.”

“Or warned you, at least.”

“Don’t owe me that, either.”

“One day I hope you get past the whole idea that everything is about owing someone. Look, they’ll leave, if I ask them to. You’re bound to be asked a thousand difficult questions, and…”

“Do you really think I imagined I’d be able to appear in Diagon Alley, at your shop, and avoid your friends forever? I might be an idiot, Potter, but I’m not stupid. I _could_ be long gone. And I’m not. So stop fretting like Madame Pomfrey.” He climbed to his feet, a little awkward but as graceful as he’d ever been, and ran his hand over the short, soft bristles on his scalp. “We might as well make ourselves useful.”

He stood as straight as he could manage and headed for the kitchen. Harry could see the sharp shoulder blades through his clothes. With another, hopefully final sigh, he followed.

Lunch could have been a lot more awkward, Harry supposed. Ron, Hermione and Ginny all put in an effort, Ginny quietly goading Draco, speculating about his obvious escape into witness protection (“If that was the case, Weasley, I’d hardly tell you.”). How he’d escaped indentured servitude in the Department of Mysteries (“Don’t you know there’s a vow that makes people’s tongues fall out if they speak of such things?”). Ron and Hermione took over the cooking, and Harry had the very important tasks of hovering, fussing, and worrying.

But no one really pressed Draco on why he was there, and Harry, for his part, was relieved.

He barely tasted the food, but still declared it the best Sunday dinner ever. He produced a cake that had been brought by a grateful customer a few days prior and they mowed through most of that, as well. And then Hermione said she needed to finish an assignment before class the next day, which Ron and Ginny took to mean she was hustling them out the door. Which she was. To Harry’s relief, and apparently, Draco’s as well.

“Harry, where do you want to meet for our lunch date on Tuesday?” Hermione asked brightly as she wrapped her scarf around her neck. Harry was about to ask what she was talking about when he saw that familiar steel in her eyes.

“Oh,” he said. “I hadn’t given it much thought. That Muggle café near your school with the brilliant steak and mushroom pies?”

“Ideal,” she said, looking satisfied. She hugged Harry tightly, and to Harry’s shock (and evidently Draco’s as well) she hugged Draco, too. He stiffened for a moment, but returned the embrace cordially when he had recovered his equilibrium.

“I hope I’ll see you soon,” she said, rather officiously, when she’d let go of Draco. He didn’t reply, but he looked, Harry thought, a little fond when he nodded noncommittally.

Harry and Draco stood awkwardly on the landing for a few long moments, after the green flames disappeared. They returned to the kitchen, where Harry packed up leftovers and Draco ran the sink full of water. Harry said nothing about that; he was rubbish as those domestic charms, and besides, he’d never minded doing the dishes. Silently, Draco washed them. Just as silently, Harry dried them. When they were done, and the kitchen was tidy once more, Draco gave Harry a weak smile. It didn’t meet his eyes, but it was a smile.

“I think I need some sleep,” he said.

“Of course,” Harry said. “Listen, I’ll bring you some pyjamas. You leave those clothes out. They need laundering.”

Draco shook his head. “I can do that tomorrow while you work,” he said, looking faintly embarrassed.

“The washer is old-fashioned. It runs on magic.”

Draco flushed. “Oh.”

“You’re not ready to talk about it, are you?”

“Goodnight, Potter,” Draco said. It was barely five in the evening. The sun wasn’t down yet. But Harry thought he might have been almost as tired as Draco.

He wished that Draco would call him Harry.

“Goodnight, Draco,” he said quietly, and headed to his own bedroom to read until he was ready to sleep.

“These pies really are fantastic,” Harry said, avoiding Hermione’s eyes and cutting savagely into the crust.

“Oh, _please_ , Harry,” she replied. He didn’t look at her, but he _heard_ her roll her eyes. “Are you going to tell me why Draco Malfoy is your house-guest?”

“I would if I knew,” he said honestly. “He showed up in the middle of the night, soaked to the skin, and asked me for my help. I’m giving him my help. That’s as much as I can tell you.”

“And you didn’t tell me because…?”

Harry bit his lip, and cast a warming charm on his pie, since he apparently wasn’t allowed to eat it until they were done with this conversation. “Because he’s been skittish as a Cornish Pixie, and I had no idea what to say to you.” He crossed his arms on the table. “You asked me about the night I broke my nose.”

“I hardly —”

“It was Draco. He’s playing guitar in a punk band. Or was, I suppose.” He reached for his coffee mug, but only turned it in his hand. “I was doing my best to talk an aspiring writer into bed, and suddenly there was Draco up on stage covered in tattoos and with his hair almost shaved off. Playing the guitar. I talked to him afterwards, or tried to… and he broke my nose. That was the last time I saw him, until he showed up asking for my help.”

Hermione gaped, but Harry could hear the cogs in her mind working overtime. “But he…”

There were a thousand things she might have intended to say, but she said none of them, and Harry heard her regardless.

“He doesn’t use magic anymore.”

“But Draco loved magic!” Hermione said, in the shouting-est whisper Harry had ever heard.

Harry shrugged helplessly. “I don’t know what to do,” he said. “I keep thinking I should call a Healer. Or Pansy. Or Blaise, I don’t know. Someone. He’s doing better than he was, but I still don’t know why he’s here, and I can’t help him except by… I don’t know. Food, shelter, clothes.”

They were quiet for a while and Harry decided to give his pie another go. He had barely shovelled a forkful into his mouth when Hermione let out a defeated sigh and dropped her shoulders.

“Do you want me to see what I can find out?” she asked.

“No,” Harry said. “Don’t you dare, Hermione. If he can’t trust me — he has no one.”

It hadn’t really crossed his mind before but the moment the statement slipped from between Harry’s lips he knew that it was true.

“I’ll let you know when and if there is anything you can do. In the meantime — just try to act as if Draco _sodding_ Malfoy showing up at the home of his sworn enemy and asking for help isn’t the weirdest thing that has ever happened, and I’ll be eternally grateful.”

One of the most amusing days of Draco’s very strange visit to Harry’s home was the day that Andromeda and Teddy appeared unannounced.

Harry felt guilty, for a moment; the last few months he had seen less of his godson than he usually did. But Teddy appeared nothing but delighted to be in his arms, not grumpy or resentful, delightful child that he was, chatting animatedly about the kittens in the backyard at Twelve Grimmauld Place. Draco, unaware of Harry’s guests, threw the door open and began to descend the stairs, babbling about laundry before stopping to gape, his face purpling.

“Aunt Andromeda,” he said formally, and Harry found himself wondering how exactly this man and the nose-breaking punk guitar player existed in the same body. “It’s very nice to see you.”

Andromeda froze, looking over Draco from head to toe. She glanced quickly at Harry, and Harry realised he had some explaining he would need to do. “Nephew,” she said. “I haven’t seen you since…”

She couldn’t say it, though, and apparently, neither could Draco.

Teddy’s hair turned abruptly white, like Draco’s, cropped close to his head. “Harry,” he said, reaching for Harry’s nose. “I’ve been thinking about certain things and I think we should go for some ice cream.”

“It’s too cold for ice cream,” Harry insisted. Teddy weighed a tonne. Four years old — it was hard to believe. Harry put him down.

Teddy made a mournful expression. “Mr Fortes— Forks—“ he bit his lip. “Mr _Fortescue_ must have such a hard time of it when the weather is cold. People have prejudice against delicious cold food just because it’s cold outside.”

Harry clamped a hand over his mouth. Andromeda did the same, and turned away. Draco crouched on the ground in front of Teddy.

“So,” he said, “what you’re saying is that it would be economically responsible of us to support small local businesses by going down the street to buy ice cream.”

Teddy frowned, and tried to think through it all. He bit his lip, and his hair turned a soft violet. He eventually seemed to make up his mind, though. “Yes,” he said, nodding at Draco. “And you can come.”

“He learned about prejudice,” Harry murmured to Andromeda as Draco fastened coats around himself and Teddy both. “I’m proud.”

“I was talking about pureblood nonsense,” Andromeda replied. “And I never taught him to extrapolate.”

Harry slung an arm around her shoulder as Teddy and Draco slipped out into the street.

“You want to talk about this?” she asked.

Harry didn’t even reply.

On the first of December, Harry woke to the tinkling of bells. For a moment he thought someone had come into the shop, and almost launched himself out of bed, and then he realised that Diagon Alley had decorated itself in the night, ready for the Christmas season.

He wrapped a heavy robe around himself and descended the stairs in the pre-dawn dark. He was surprised to find Draco wide awake, staring out the window with wonder in his eyes.

“I’d forgotten what it’s like,” he said. He didn’t turn to look at Harry, he just stared. Of course, a rock guitarist — or whatever it was that Draco referred to himself as — probably didn’t bother with Christmas decorations. Harry walked silently past the counter and stood by Draco.

“Mother loved Christmas,” he said, wistfully. “She spent all of November planning the decorations, and setting out the plans for the elves, drawing up lists of things they needed to order and who would be doing what jobs. Packages would arrive for weeks and weeks and then on the first of December, we’d wake up to find the house was decorated. I missed that, when I went to Hogwarts, you know. Not that the decorations there were anything to sneeze at.”

“I never sneezed at them,” Harry agreed. “My Aunt Petunia was very enthusiastic about Christmas as well, though in her case, I was always the house-elf.”

“Famous Harry Potter, Saviour of the Wizarding World, a house-elf?” For a moment Draco sounded dismissive, and then his expression shifted to wariness. Harry could barely see it from the corner of his eye but it was there.

Harry shrugged. “More or less. I was allowed clothes, of course. Whatever my cousin Dudley had grown out of, as long as it wasn’t nice enough for a consignment store.” Draco was staring at him, now. Harry still didn’t turn his head, but he could feel the gaze, and he didn’t mind it.

“I’d always imagined you were raised a proper little prince. That your messy clothes were an affectation.” Harry didn’t reply. “There’s never been a word about anything like that in the _Prophet_.”

“I don’t like people to know. Imagine how they’d spin it.”

“ _Boy hero’s tragic past_ ,” Draco intoned. “ _Potter’s Pain_. Hmm.” He paused a few long moments. “Doesn’t explain why you’d tell _me_ , though.”

“Perhaps for the same reason you showed up on my doorstep in the rain,” Harry murmured, and the subject was dropped.

Lights faded in and out in the street, twinkling sleepily.

“We could decorate in here, if you like,” Harry said, delicately.

Draco’s mouth tightened, but he said nothing.

“Draco,” Harry said. “Are you ever going to tell me what happened?”

“I’ll leave whenever you want me to.”

“No, that’s not what — I don’t want you to leave. But I feel as if you need some help, and you’re too stubborn to ask for it, and… — I mean something _specific_ , Draco. Not just shelter and food.”

Draco crossed his arms over his body, and Harry dropped his line of questioning. A couple of minutes later, Draco eased himself elegantly onto the wide windowsill, still looking out over the street. There was snow, of course, not real snow, but the sort that everyone wanted to see at Christmas. Settling on the window panes and crunching beneath people’s feet on the cobblestones, not dreary and grey and soaking into their boots as it melted.

“It’s Sunday,” Harry said, a few minutes later, settling himself on the windowsill beside Draco. Draco didn’t respond. “I’ll be heading for lunch at the Burrow. I thought — I thought you might want to come with me.”

“No one in that house wants to see me,” Draco said evenly.

“You’re getting along fine with Ron and Ginny, and Hermione is quite fond of you, these days.”

Draco snorted. “They lost a lot, and it was my fault.”

“It was Tom Riddle’s fault. They know that.” Harry shifted, back to the window, facing the shop counter with his elbows on his knees. “You lost a lot as well.”

“The difference is, everything I lost, I deserved to lose.”

Harry wanted to argue, but he couldn’t think of anything sensible to say. He wished Hermione was there. She’d have said something clever and true and maybe made Draco smile a little bit. Harry had nothing. The silence stretched on, and on, and he allowed himself to glance at Draco from time to time, hoping to see something on his face which might give the slightest clue as to his state of mind. Nothing presented itself. His expression was cool and so controlled, as it often was, and Harry couldn’t feel his magic. He wondered again how long it had been since Draco used it, and why, and whether it could come back. Whether Harry could create the right wand for him. If it was an emotional problem, a physical one. So much to wonder.

“It would be nice,” Draco said at last, “to put up a tree, at least.”

“We could do that.”

“You have to ask them if I can come,” he said a few minutes later. “I’m not springing it on them. But don’t be surprised if they say no. I won’t be hurt.”

Harry reached out, and settled his hand on Draco’s knee. Draco tensed, and relaxed, and seemed to slump. A little, and then a lot; he unfolded himself and dropped his cheek onto Harry’s thigh, letting Harry run a hand over his spiky hair. It felt so strange, and so right, and Harry felt his heart race and then slow again. The sky brightened from black to dark blue, and then the beginnings of purple crept into the shadows.

“What time?” Draco said, after a long, comfortable silence, sitting up formally (if groggily).

“I usually leave here about noon,” Harry replied, already missing the weight of Draco’s head in his lap.

“I might try to get a couple more hours of sleep,” Draco said. He didn’t meet Harry’s eyes as he left. He slipped up the stairs like a sylph. Harry stared after him for what felt like a long time, thinking.

Harry wrote a note to Molly, and another to Hermione and Ron, and finally to George. He told them all what he’d done so impulsively and told them that if they thought it was a mistake, they needed only to say the word and he would rescind the invitation.

Molly’s reply came less than an hour later. Her handwriting was shaky, but she assured Harry that if he trusted Draco then she would be happy to offer her hospitality. Harry was quite sure that the moment she saw how thin Draco was she’d be fussing over him like he was one of her own brood. Hermione replied shortly afterwards with a declaration that it was a wonderful idea.

George’s note came from Angelina. It was a reminder that Draco had been the one to toss Harry the wand that had ultimately led to Voldemort’s destruction, and that George would be alright.

Draco emerged from his room in Ron’s jeans (which Ron had decided he could keep), another of Harry’s t-shirts and the same brown cardigan he’d been wearing for three weeks now. He had deep, oily shadows under his eyes but a determination that buoyed Harry somewhat.

“It will be okay,” he said, reaching out to brush his fingers over Draco’s wrist. To his surprise Draco took his hand, and nodded, stepping into the Floo with Harry as Harry called out “The Burrow.”

The first hour was difficult and awkward but Draco still seemed determined, chopping vegetables by hand even when Molly said she was happy to set the knives to do it themselves. She saw quickly that he was determined to do something, and left him alone for a while, until Arthur came to talk to him.

“I’ll show you my collection, if you can keep a secret,” he said, and Draco followed him with some trepidation out to the shed where he kept his bizarre collection of Muggle items. The whole house seemed to breathe out once he was outside.

“Harry Potter,” Molly said. “That boy is as thin as a rake — and he has _no wand_! Are you not a wandmaker, and a powerful Wizard? What is this all about?”

Ginny opened a bag of crisps. “Leave off, mum. No one knows what it’s all about, except that he and Harry are mad about each other.”

Harry squawked, and so did Molly, and Ginny smiled unrepentantly. Ron’s face drained of all colour, and Hermione jabbed him in the ribs.

“It’s not like that,” Harry said.

“Oh, silly me,” Ginny said. “Mum, I’ll knead that loaf again, shall I?”

“It’s really not,” Harry said again to Molly, and then the bottom fell out of his stomach.

It _was_ like that. It was exactly like that. He was mad about Draco Malfoy, and though he sincerely doubted that the feeling was mutual, he wondered now if there was a reason that Draco had shown up at his shop. His home. How had he even known where… anyway — _no_.

“He just needs some help, is all,” Harry said, miserably. “I’m sure when he’s feeling better he’ll be off again.”

No one acknowledged the lie. Instead, they chatted about inconsequential things, and when Arthur and Draco returned from the shed, Draco was holding a battered old acoustic guitar.

“He knows how to play it,” Arthur marvelled. “Can you believe that, Molly?”

Draco, for his part, only looked relieved to have something to do that might stop people from talking to him. He sat delicately on the arm of a couch and began to tune the strings. They were old. Two snapped, and he hissed as he withdrew his hand, which bore a deep scratch across the back.

“It’s alright,” Harry said, crouching in front of him, forgetting the entire clan of Weasleys were watching. He healed Draco’s hand, and repaired the strings, and though Draco looked doubtful for a moment he tried again to tune the guitar and this time the strings held.

He plucked gently, and then began to play, something Harry thought he recognised from the Muggle radio station he sometimes listened to at the shop. He sang quietly, beautifully, and Harry wished he could go back to that first day on the Hogwarts Express and shake Draco’s hand, show him another way through.

They all sat down to eat a little while later and Draco’s spine was straight, for all he was subdued and anxious-looking. Harry bumped their knees together under the table, which seemed to help. Molly was struggling, Arthur was focused on her, Ginny had absolutely no filter, Hermione was carrying the conversation and Harry was wondering if he’d made a terrible, terrible mistake.

“I was so sorry about your mother, dear,” Molly said. Harry wanted to turn time back a few moments and distract her, but Draco forced a very polished expression onto his face, even if his eyes looked desperately sad.

“Thank you,” he said. He opened his mouth again, as if to say something else, but shovelled a mouthful of peas into it instead.

“And will you be joining us for Christmas, Harry?” Arthur asked cheerfully.

“I will,” Harry said. He didn’t look at Draco.

“You’re invited as well, of course,” Bill said to Draco. He didn’t look up, though. Harry wanted to know if Draco was looking at Bill’s scars, if he was thinking about that night. The air could not have been harder to breathe.

“Thank you,” Draco said, sounding strangled. “I’ll give that some thought. It’s a very kind invitation.”

Back at the shop, Draco disappeared upstairs and closed his door with a decisive click.

Harry was disappointed; he’d thought perhaps after a day like this one had been Draco might be ready to talk at last. Draco seemed to have a finite capacity for being around other people, though, and being surrounded by that much magic might have worn him out as well.

Harry had neither the emotional bandwidth nor the attention span for creative work, not just then. He took up a wand that he’d been working on, probably the largest he’d ever made, and some fine-grained sandpaper. He already knew that there would be a shine to this wand; the wood was a dark red, almost black, and so beautifully responsive to his work that he could feel it hum with satisfaction under his fingers.

There was a quiet knock on the door, and Harry looked up, surprised. “Come in,” he said.

Draco’s eyes were red-rimmed, the inky shadows beneath them even more pronounced. His hands were hidden in his cardigan, as per usual, and he flinched at the sight of the half-completed wands scattered over the table.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t know you were busy.”

“Just needed something to do with my hands,” Harry said, standing. He rested against the countertop and crossed his arms over his body. “Are you alright?”

Draco nodded. “I said terrible things to Ron, when we were children. Called him poor. I’ve never been in a house like that. With people like that.”

Harry snorted. “Yeah. First time I went to the Burrow, the summer after first year, I felt the same. Everyone happy and shouting… I didn’t know families could be like that.”

Draco thought on it. “I’m sorry I broke your nose.”

“It’s alright.”

“Twice.”

Harry snorted again. “It’s not my best feature.”

“What is your best feature?” Draco sounded genuinely curious.

“I’m a speccy Gryffindork, remember? I don’t have one.” It was getting cold. The sun had gone down, and Harry had barely noticed. “I might make some tea, if you’d like one.”

Upstairs, he summoned the teapot and the tea, wandlessly, thoughtlessly, and when he looked up again Draco was looking at him with hunger in his eyes. Very poorly disguised.

“You love your life, don’t you?” he asked, but it was less like a question than a wondrous understanding. “You really love your life. This shop. Your friends. Your… family. You figured things out.”

Harry had never really thought about it like that. He filled the teapot with hot water. “Yes,” he said. “I love my life. It’s nothing like I’d ever imagined… not when I was a hungry kid sleeping under the stairs, not when I was at school…” His eyes closed for a moment, breathing it in. “Sometimes I think all of this is a dream, and it’ll go away again, and I’ll be back in the Forbidden Forest, dead under the trees, under the stars. And other times, I think it must be real. After everything that’s happened… I feel I’ve earned this peace.”

He looked at Draco again. _All I really want is someone to share it with_ , he thought, but didn’t say.

Draco moved closer. Closer than an enemy, closer than a friend. Close enough so that Harry was suddenly forcibly reminded of those few inches Draco had over him. Harry let himself be crowded against the kitchen counter, watching Draco’s eyes, even while Draco deliberately avoided his gaze. When Draco reached a tentative hand out as if waiting to be stopped — Harry took that hand and brought it to his lips. He kissed Draco’s knuckles, and then his palm, and then the inside of his wrist. He curved his other arm around Draco’s waist. He seemed so fragile, but Harry knew he wasn’t. No one survived as much as they had and remained fragile in the end.

“You could be a part of this life,” Harry murmured, and when Draco choked, leaning in, Harry wrapped him in his arms and pulled him close. He kissed Draco’s shoulder, his neck, his jaw, and when Draco let out an almost mournful cry and leaned for Harry’s lips, Harry kissed him properly.

No first kiss is perfect. It takes time to find the right rhythm with someone new. But this kiss was very _close_ to perfect. Not tentative, not at all, it was a hungry, desperate kiss, perhaps a decade in the making. Draco pressed the length of his body against Harry’s, and reached up to free Harry’s hair from the loose bun, tangling his fingers in the length of it, pulling just enough to bare Harry’s throat and press hot lips to the shivering skin.

“Can I — can I —”

“Yes,” Harry said. “Fuck, yes.”

“I didn’t even say.”

“Anything,” Harry promised, slipping his hand under Draco’s t-shirt and thrilling to the way Draco whimpered in response. “We — bedroom? Please. I want to look at you.”

They stumbled into Harry’s bedroom already pulling at their clothes, and Harry was suddenly glad for the practise he’d had, shagging Muggles all over London, think of those first few times when he couldn’t quite figure out the etiquette of getting one’s kit off, wondering if he seemed presumptuous. Presumptuous or not they both knew what was happening here, and by the time Draco’s back hit the mattress all he had to do was lift his hips so Harry could help him with his jeans.

Naked, with his long, proud cock curving towards his stomach, Draco was beyond beautiful. His lips were softly swollen from kisses and he put himself up on one elbow as Harry discarded the last of his own clothes.

“I want to kiss every inch of you,” Harry said, climbing up onto the bed, kissing Draco’s hip. “Fuck, d’you know what you look like.”

Draco tensed briefly, and Harry remembered the mirrors. He looked up, flushed with apology, but Draco seemed to want to speak no further of it. He tugged at Harry’s arm until they were pressed close on the bed, legs slotted together, Harry riding Draco’s thigh and Draco arching his back to do the same.

“Your tattoos,” Harry said, kissing one of the dark tendrils which quested down over Draco’s chest to curl around his nipple. “They don’t move.”

Draco sucked air through his teeth as Harry bit it gently. “No. Just regular Muggle tattoos… Potter, please…”

Harry slipped his hand between their bodies, conjured a little lube in his hand and took both cocks together, grinning when Draco’s head tipped back, insensible, his eyes rolling in his head. “Is that what you want?”

“In a minute I’m going to tell you to fuck me, and if you want it to last for longer than thirty seconds, then yes, I’d sugg… Potter. Potter!”

“What’s it going to take to get you to use my first name?” Harry asked with an affectedly mournful tone.

“I’ll call you Great-aunt Walburga, if it… scratch that. Don’t slow down, Potter, please…”

It had been a long time since Harry had been romantically entangled with anyone but his own hand, and after days of what he now recognised as sexual frustration he knew it wasn’t going to take long. And couldn’t bring himself to care, either, knowing they had all evening and all night and ideally the rest of their lives to do this. Draco’s eyes rolled back in his head and he wrapped his arm tight around Harry’s neck, muttering, gasping, begging into his ear before his body locked up tight and he came hard into the narrow space between their bodies, digging his nails into Harry’s shoulder until Harry was quite sure he’d broken the skin. The expression on his face drove Harry over the edge as well, and he let out a very undignified grunt.

Harry lay beside Draco and breathed into his bicep, thrilling to the aftershocks, his cock over-sensitised and sticky.

“Do they mean anything?”

Draco hesitated, and then lifted his right arm to show Harry. “I designed them to hide the Dark Mark. I tried to get rid of it. It scarred, and I still… I _knew_. I saw it every time. So I hid it, instead. It was all I could really do. It’s all I’ve ever really been able to. Hide who I am.”

“Who you _were_ ,” Harry insisted.

“Some things don’t go away, Potter.”

“Is that why you don’t use magic anymore?”

Draco rolled over, and pressed against Harry’s body, in a gesture that suggested he wasn’t prepared to have that conversation yet. He bit Harry’s bottom lip, and sucked it into his mouth. Harry shivered, and rubbed his hand over Draco’s bristly head.

“I’m going to suck you,” Draco murmured. “Until you’re hard as diamonds again. And then I’m going to ride your cock. I’ll do all the work. You just lie there and enjoy the view.”

“And here, I was planning to make you beg,” Harry said, clasping his hands behind his head as Draco started to kiss and lick down his body. It was much too soon for him to get hard again, he thought. Until Draco licked at a stripe of come on Harry’s stomach and moaned into his skin. “Good grief,” he muttered, reaching back with one hand to grip the headboard, moving the other back to the top of Draco’s fuzzy head.

“Don’t go easy,” Draco said, when he’d licked a stripe up Harry’s cock, and gently sucked at the head. “I like a good face-fucking. I’ll pinch you if it’s too much.”

“You’ve got a filthy mouth.”

“Then fuck it,” Draco said, looking up through his pale eyelashes at Harry. He sank down slowly, cheeks hollowing, and Harry — well, he’d always thought of himself as a nice, obliging sort of person, so he did precisely as he’d been asked, slowly at first, trying to get a grip on what exactly Draco wanted from him.

Cleaning the pipes had clearly been an excellent idea; Harry thought he might be able to go forever, like this, his spine melting into lava and Draco’s mouth bobbing over him like he was starving. Without looking up, Draco held his hand out, slapping Harry’s hand away when Harry tried to take it.

Oh. Oh! Harry wordlessly conjured some lube into Draco’s hand and Draco lifted his own arse into the air, steadying himself with one hand and working his fingers inside himself until he was so turned on his mouth was getting sloppy, his rhythm entirely gone.

“If I don’t get to do that myself, I think I should at least be able to watch,” Harry complained.

Draco sneered, but didn’t speak, and after a moment or two longer he repositioned himself over Harry’s cock, and slowly eased him in.

Harry’s eyes closed. The sensation was far too much, after so long, and he truly couldn’t remember the last time he’d slept with someone he actually fancied. And when, he wondered, as he settled his hands on Draco’s hips, had that happened? At what point had he decided ‘ _I want that pointy git_ ’? He sat up abruptly, wrapping his arms around Draco’s body with Draco seated firmly over his thighs.

“So fucking beautiful,” Harry said. “I don’t care why you showed up here that night. I’m just glad you’re here. Stay with me, Draco. Will you?”

Draco didn’t answer, just kissed him, and Harry decided that was as good an answer as any, for the moment. He snapped his hips, and Draco moaned loud and long. His eyes seemed to spark when he looked at Harry again.

The air began to shift.

Harry rolled them over without dislodging himself, and Draco clamped his legs tightly around Harry’s hips. The spark wasn’t just in his eyes. The air all around them had begun to crackle like it was full of fireworks, burning their skin and making the air somehow thinner and richer at the same time.

“What’s happening?” Draco asked, clutching at Harry in lust and fear.

“It’s your core,” Harry murmured, into his neck. “It’s waking up.”

When Harry woke in the morning, he was alone on the bed. He stretched, and grinned; Draco was probably making coffee, or wrestling with Scamp for the Daily Prophet. Harry let his eyes close, and waited a moment.

It was quiet in the house, though. He felt suddenly uneasy. “Draco?” he called. No answer.

Perhaps he’d sneaked down the street to buy pastries, but Harry didn’t think it likely. Perhaps he’d gone to visit Pansy or Blaise? No. It was that time of the morning when Diagon Alley was just starting to get busy, people lining up at apparition points, calling hello to their neighbours. Smaller children were being herded off to nursery school. Draco wouldn’t have left while the streets were that busy.

Harry took a long shower, trying to keep away the feeling of doom. He made himself a cup of tea, and checked the guest room in case Draco had struggled to fall asleep with Harry wrapped around him like an octopus. Maybe he had left. With his magic back, maybe he’d disguised himself, and he’d be back with chocolate croissants and proper coffee any minute.

Harry fussed in the shop, looking up every time he heard a single sound. People would be buying Christmas gifts here soon. His tiny kneazle-whisker wands for children too young for a proper wand yet but who would delight at the trails of sweet-smelling sparks the wands trailed in their wake. Wand stands for heirlooms, polishing cloths, the other small items Harry had begun to include in the shop to keep people coming in throughout the year.

At eleven o’clock, Pansy came in with a promising-looking brown paper bag, and a less-promising glare.

“You should have told me,” she said, dropping the paper bag on the counter and crossing her arms. No one that diminutive should have been able to look so threatening.

“He didn’t want me to,” Harry replied miserably. “Have you — did you —“

“He woke me at six o’clock this morning. Said he didn’t want to leave again without saying goodbye. I thought we were friends, Potter.”

“We are, Pans. I’m sorry. I didn’t want to push him in case he took off again.”

“You thought what, I’d come in here and shout at him for abandoning us, bully him into explaining where he’s been the last few years? Shout at him for being such an inconsiderate numpty?” Harry raised his eyebrows. “Right. Fair enough,” Pansy said, and dropped her shoulders. “But why did he come here?”

Harry didn’t have an answer for that. For any of it. For a moment last night he’d thought maybe Draco had come because he wanted to be in Harry’s life, because he’d seen something there that he wanted. That like Harry himself he’d eventually started wondering if all of those years of mutual obsession and pigtail-pulling had been a veneer. He’d wondered if they might have another chance, if the help Harry had failed to offer Draco when they were sixteen years old and the world was on fire might be something he could offer now.

And just like that, he realised the truth.

Draco had come to get magic back.

All of this — he’d been so clever, so careful, made Harry think they were getting closer. Made Harry think that affection was real, that his hesitation and his beautiful submission had been Harry’s idea. So little was known about re-awakening a dormant magical core, but if someone wanted to do that, what better source than what the Daily Prophet constantly referred to as the _greatest magical spark in living memory_?

Harry felt tears prickle his eyes. So many years of trying to be someone other than the Boy Who Lived, the Chosen One, the Saviour. Trying to find his place in the world and forget his terrible power and anything resembling destiny. And he’d won, in so many ways. Here, in his shop, creating things instead of destroying, using his magic in gentle and artistic pursuits. But Draco?

 _No_ , a quiet voice murmured in his head. _Not Draco._ ** _Malfoy_**.

 _Malfoy_ still saw him the way he always had. The way some other people always would. Harry thought he might throw up.

“I have to go, Pans. I’m not feeling well.”

Pansy narrowed her eyes again. She was probably trying to look cross, but only succeeded in looking worried. “How convenient.” She huffed, and then her expression softened. “Or not. Harry, did he… _do_ something to you?”

“No.” Harry huffed a laugh. “I did it to myself. I’m sorry, Pans. I really have to go and rest. You should take those with you; I don’t think I could eat a bite anyway.”

That night, Harry sat on the couch at Ron and Hermione’s house and admitted the story, haltingly, and without enough detail for Ron to get nauseated. He had both hands wrapped around a crystal whiskey glass, warming the Firewhiskey inside with his hands until he could smell it, the low honey notes and the faint smokiness. Ron and Hermione’s home was nicer each time Harry visited; piece by piece they had decorated it, painted it, added tiny treasures and more photographs until it was beginning to feel like an extension of the Burrow. Which, while not fully recovered into its former glory, was still the homiest home Harry had ever known. Quilted blankets and cushions, mismatched teacups and plates from thrift shops around London; Harry loved it, here.

They sat in quiet contemplation for a long time. Harry felt numb. What little anger he had was directed inward. He should have known that Malfoy hadn’t changed.

“Are you sure?” Hermione asked. “I mean — you can’t really be sure, can you? He seemed so different. I keep thinking of him sitting on your couch with that deer-in-headlights look, wearing your cardigan…”

“And my ruddy jeans,” Ron groused.

“… And then at the Burrow, chopping vegetables for Molly.”

“Sucking up,” Harry said, shrugging. “I guess. I can’t believe I fell for it all. If he’d come in all cocky and hit on me I’d have tossed him out on his arse. So I’m the idiot here, I guess.”

Hermione still looked troubled.

“You know something — I’m not dwelling on this. It’s December. It’s nearly Christmas, and I’m not letting that manipulative git ruin it for me. And my New Year’s Resolution is… I’m going to start dating. Properly dating. Relationship-type dating.”

“Charlie’s coming for Christmas,” Ron said with enthusiasm, and Harry and Hermione laughed at him. Hermione poured Harry another Firewhiskey, and they sat quietly for a while.

“It’s a funny expression,” Ron said at last.

“What’s that?” Hermione tipped her head.

“A deer in headlights.”

“Oh,” Hermione said. “Headlights are —”

“I know what headlights are, ‘Mione,” Ron said, with more confidence than he probably should have. “Muggles wear them to go exploring caves. Just can’t think why a deer would need one. They see well in the dark, and they don’t live in caves — do they?”

There was a long moment of silence, and then Harry and Hermione burst into riotous laughter. _Medicinal_ laughter. The kind where tears were soon pouring from Harry’s eyes, and Ron was blinking in amusement. “What? What did I say? ‘Mione? Hey! What did I say?”

When Harry closed the shop on Christmas Eve he stood outside in the magic snow with a mug of hot chocolate held between gloved hands to watch the lights twinkle for a few minutes, and to breathe the cool air. He’d lived with a lot of sadness in his life. He knew how to handle that. He and disappointment were old friends, and most of the time, he knew how to keep his expectations low.

He’d had feelings for Malfoy, but this disappointment paled in comparison to almost any other loss he’d experienced. He’d survive. And if nothing else, this had jerked him awake. Showed him that there were things missing from his life; sex, and companionship, and someone to share his life with. Things he hadn’t thought mattered, knowing he had friends and family and meaningful work. But they mattered.

“Thought that was you,” came a familiar and jovial voice. Harry smiled at the figure coming up the street. “I’ve just come from the Leaky.”

“I can tell, ‘cause you’re stonkered,” Harry said with a laugh. “Seeing your mum tomorrow?”

“Nah, mate. Spending it with Pans. Mum’s having a summer Christmas in Australia with her new paramour. He’s about a hundred and fifty years old, probably won’t survive the trip, but she knows how to put a smile on an old man’s face.” Blaise stood by Harry, leaning against the cold window. “Blimey. I really _am_ stonkered.”

“You really shouldn’t apparate in this state,” Harry said, chuckling. “Come in and use the Floo.”

Blaise didn’t argue. He followed Harry inside, and up the stairs to the lit fireplace. “You doing New Year’s Eve this year?”

“We’ll be back here about nine from the Burrow. Bring anyone you like.”

Blaise nodded. “I’ll come by in a few days with some booze. The honey liqueur I started last year is bloody fantastic.” He hesitated at the Floo as if he had something to say, and for a second, Harry remembered what he’d said to Hermione, so long ago; _Zabini likes anyone who can hold their own in a battle of wits and fill out a pair of jeans nicely_.

… nah.

“Happy Christmas, Blaise,” Harry said.

Zabini winked at him. “Happy Christmas, Potter. See you on the thirty-first,” he replied, as he tossed the powder into the Floo and stumbled in, shouting an approximation of his address.

Christmas was the usual affair. Too much food, too much drink, more and more small children running around every year. This year, they were all shaking their tiny wands at each other and shrieking in delight as the brightly coloured sparks flew around the room. Teddy’s hair was Weasley-red, and as the oldest child he was determinedly behaving like a good influence.

After lunch, Andromeda did her best to squeeze recipes out of Molly for things picky children might be convinced to eat, as Teddy had recently stopped eating everything that was put in front of him. Molly did her best, but as all seven Weasley children had been very easy to feed, she had little advice.

Everyone was wearing freshly knitted Weasley jumpers in a riot of colours. Apparently Molly had grown weary of sticking with house colours. Victoire was decked out in yellow, pink, and aquamarine; Teddy in purple and lime green.

“Harry, dear,” Molly said, as the afternoon grew long. “I thought Draco might have come.”

Harry laughed painfully. “No. I’m afraid that didn’t really work out. I thought he wanted to come back to our world — but I was mistaken.”

Molly was quiet, hands on her hips. “I knitted him a lovely scarf. Not Slytherin colours — a nice pale blue to bring out his eyes.”

“Oh, Molly… I’m sorry. You didn’t have to do that.” Harry led her a few steps into the kitchen. Over the last few years they’d grown closer. Honest. Molly was less of a parent and more like… well, Harry thought of the friends he had who got along well with a particular Auntie or Uncle, and how they could be easier to talk to than a parents. “Really, I should be apologising to you. You opened your home to him because I asked you to, even though… and I made a huge error in judgement. I forgot the tale of the scorpion and the frog. The frog would be very disappointed with me.” He smiled tightly, but didn’t bother trying to laugh.

Molly’s eyebrows knit in the middle. “Harry, dear… I’m not sure Draco was ever a scorpion, though. He may have been raised by one. You know, that day over here he spoke to Arthur and Arthur thought that, well, that Draco was very fond of you.” She held his gaze. “ _Very_ fond. And I’m not saying that it would be easy for everyone to just forget the past. But Arthur is a very good judge of character, Harry dear, you mustn’t think he’s not just because he’s kind.”

Harry swallowed against a lump in his throat.

“It doesn’t matter. Molly. He’s gone. I don’t expect to see him again.”

Molly gave him a firm hug. It took Harry back to the very first time she’d done it. The first time he’d learned what a really motherly hug was like. “Thank you. For everything. Including that. And so’s you know, I decided that this year my resolution would be to see if I can find myself a nice bloke to settle down with. And before you ask — yes, that includes letting you set me up with your friend’s brother’s nephew, or what have you, alright?”

Molly kissed his cheek. “I’ll start asking around.” She pressed a small, brightly wrapped package into Harry’s hand. “Put it aside. In case he ever comes back.”

Harry didn’t argue. He headed back to the sitting room where the youngest children were casting ‘spells’ at Teddy to ‘make’ his hair change colour. Such a good sport. Such a good child. Harry took a mug of butterbeer from Ron and sat on the couch, pulling his feet up underneath him.

He was blessed to be a part of this; and if it was all he’d ever have, it would still be a blessing.

That night Harry slept in Ron and Hermione’s guest bedroom, quite unnecessarily, and they took a slow breakfast around noon. Bacon and eggs on toast, mug after mug of coffee until they decided they’d never sleep if they didn’t switch to tea, fresh orange juice and sharing stories about the day before.

When Harry went home he was feeling cheerful and creative so he fed Scamp a treat and spent a few hours in his workshop. It was time to be finished with this wand. It had come out precisely as he’d pictured it in his head; the deep red that looked black without strong light, the flames carved low on the base, the deep shine. His first successful thestral-hair wand. It had the most beautiful melancholy about it, and reminded him of something (or perhaps someone) he couldn’t quite bring to mind.

He placed it carefully in a long box, marked the end, and set it aside. The owner of such a wand would be an unusual person indeed; no need for it to be placed with the general stock.

**2003**

The days got longer, and warmer. Spring sprung, bringing with it flowers and new life, the promise of children coming home from Hogwarts for the summer, long days swimming at the shore. Ron and Hermione had talked about going on a holiday, and would he come with them? (Maybe. As long as it was early in the season, long before the children started shopping for wands.) Since January, Harry had been on four dates with very nice men, enjoyed their company and known right away that there was nothing more to it. He’d spent an additional four nights in Muggle London, intending each time to find someone fun to go home with, and each time, he’d gone home alone.

By choice.

He missed Draco.

Harry sat on the stone bench in the courtyard and gently petted the stray cat who had recently decided she enjoyed his company. She ate a tin of sardines and purred in his lap for a while before heading off to chase butterflies, leaving Harry to his tea.

He loved the long evenings of the summer. More than the warm weather, he enjoyed the way the day stretched out like the shadows, the way the sun was coming up when he opened his eyes. He cast a quick _Tempus_. Time to meet Luna and Blaise for dinner at the Leaky.

When he woke the next morning, Harry was instantly tense. Noises in the house. Not the cat. In soft grey sleep pants and not another stitch, his glasses askew on his face and his wand in hand (offensive spells he could easily cast wandlessly; defensive spells, for some reason, were still easier with a wand), Harry opened his bedroom door.

“Malfoy?”

It wasn’t really a question. Draco Malfoy was most definitely in his kitchen. His hair had grown a little longer, cropped close on one side. He looked slightly healthier than he had the previous winter, though that wasn’t a very high bar. He startled, as if it was Harry who wasn’t supposed to be there. Wearing Ron’s old jeans, and a t-shirt that threatened to fall from his shoulders.

“Potter,” he replied, turning back to the stove. And then over his shoulder; “Harry.”

Harry slipped his fingers under his glasses and rubbed his eyes, set the wand down by the television. “I must have missed your owl.”

Malfoy said nothing, focussed on his task. Which didn’t seem to be going well. There was smoke coming from the pan, though it didn’t seem to deter him.

“Malfoy — what the bloody hell are you doing here?” Harry asked, annoyed now.

“Making breakfast. I don’t know how to say I’m sorry, but I know how to make breakfast.”

“Apparently not,” Harry said. The smoke was getting worse. He cast _Aguamenti_ at the pan, and while it ruined the pancakes, the amount of smoke billowing in the air reduced significantly.

Malfoy rested his hands on the edge of the counter. “I can’t believe I fucked that up. It was really the only plan I had.”

“Plan for what?” Harry asked, annoyed. He _Scourgified_ the pan.

“I didn’t come to get my magic back,” Malfoy said. “I didn’t _want_ my magic back. I came here — Merlin’s bollocks, why am I doing this? — I came because. Because you were here. Because there hasn’t been a day since I was eleven years old when I haven’t thought about you. Because I wanted you to be my friend even when we hated each other. Because I saw the way you looked at me that night in the club, when I’d said goodbye to magic forever, and I —“

Draco let out a tortured moan, and seemed to collapse in on himself. Harry had no choice but to catch him, ease him to the ground, wrap arms around him.

“I made such a mess of being a Wizard,” he murmured into Harry’s chest. “Everyone hates me, and they’re right to. But I couldn’t make it out there, either. And I didn’t want to ruin your life. You’ve been through enough. You’ve done enough.” But he didn’t pull away. Harry slipped his arms around Draco’s shoulders and let him keen quietly against his bare chest. “I didn’t mean to take your magic.”

Harry’s lips brushed over Draco’s hair. “You didn’t. I shared it. Not on purpose, but… I suppose it was just… a magical night,” he said quietly.

After a long silence where Harry fancied some of the tension had drained from Draco’s body, he spoke again. “I’m a fuck-up.”

“You’re hardly the only one,” Harry promised.

“I’m not good enough to be in your life. And I can’t be in this world without you.”

“Your father’s ghost just woke up screaming in horror,” Harry said, but Draco didn’t laugh. “And isn’t it really up to me, to decide who’s good enough to be a part of my life?”

“No, because you have terrible instincts and a death wish.”

“I gave that up, remember,” Harry said, and he let Draco sit up again. Wanted to see those beautiful eyes, that patrician nose. Those lips, so soft, that fit so beautifully with Harry’s. Draco turned his head.

The first kiss was not perfect but it was very nearly so, and perhaps it was more perfect for its imperfection. It was warm, and tentative; affectionate and wary.

“Please, will you let me — just let me try again?”

Harry’s fingers traced the curve of Draco’s cheek. “I can’t wake up to find you’ve gone without a word again.”

“Flipping out and running away has become a terrible habit.”

“Well, write a note so I know where to fetch you back from, next time.”

“Do you promise you don’t hate me?”

Harry kissed Draco’s forehead. “My life would be so much easier if I did.” His body hummed; not with arousal, with something else. A promise for the future, maybe. At least, a promise to try. Which was the only promise anyone could ever make.

Draco took to rather dramatic and formal apologies, the responses to which generally sat somewhere along a spectrum from grudging to amused. Hermione gave him a tight hug (made awkward by her growing baby bump) and Ron said there were no hard feelings but if it happened again he was going to have Charlie feed Draco to his dragons. Pansy promised it was water under the bridge, and that she was completely over it but would almost certainly bring it up whenever she was the least bit drunk.

In late August Harry stepped out into the courtyard to hand Draco a mug of coffee. Draco flashed a smile at him, teasing the purring cat with her sardines.

Harry passed him a box.

“I don’t know,” Draco said.

“If this was nothing more than a plan to sneak back into my bed so you could steal a wand, it was a very stupid plan. You could’ve nicked one when you left the first time, saved yourself the trouble of coming back.”

Draco opened the box and lifted the wand, and Harry felt the resonance right away.

“It’s beautiful,” Draco said, awed. He gave a little wave, and sparks filled the air. “It feels so different.”

“Thestral,” Harry said quietly. Draco nodded. “Does it feel right? Try something specific.”

“Like what?”

“I dunno. Try a _Patronus_.”

Draco rose to his feet, shifting the wand in his hand. It was longer and heavier than most and he seemed to be experimenting to find the right point of balance. He turned back to Harry, who gave him a reassuring smile.

Draco raised the wand, and seemed to take a moment to settle himself. He straightened his back, tipped his chin back, took a moment to recall a memory — and then he cast.

“ _Expecto Patronum_ ,” he called, clear as a bell. From the tip of his wand, silver smoke poured, and an enormous hare leapt around the courtyard and then disappeared into the trees. Harry laughed out loud; Draco’s lips barely curved as he watched the hare’s antics. Long and strong and noble. Draco turned to Harry, the smile gone from his face, and shook his head. He looked at the wand in his hand. “I’ve never cast a real, corporeal _Patronus_ before,” he admitted.

“Yeah?” Fuck. How anyone had survived the war without one Harry didn’t know. “What moment did you use?”

Draco turned back to him, his cheeks flushing slightly. With pleasure, with embarrassment, Harry couldn’t be sure.

“This one, Harry,” Draco said almost reverently, and Harry smiled.

**Epilogue**

**2009**

The Hogwarts Express was pulling away from the station, and Draco had reached his absolute limit. Harry could feel it. Andromeda, too. Draco’s lip quivered a moment and he dissolved into tears.

“How do they do it? How have thousands of parents — every year! — Just, goodbye, we’ll see you at Christmas. And now he has his Sorting, and what if he’s afraid?” Harry and Andromeda looked at each other a moment and then forced themselves to stop. After weeks of the two of them being upset at the idea of Teddy heading off for his first year and Draco declaring them both utterly pathetic, here he was with his nose running.

“He’ll be fine,” Harry promised. “Really. _We_ all were.”

“Are you sodding — we _almost died_ every _single year_ , Potter!”

“Oh, now I know you’re pissed off with me. You only call me Potter when you’re pissed off with me. Time will fly, Draco. It’ll be Christmas before you know it.” The three of them stood on the platform, watching the train disappear, surrounded by parents who look sad and relieved and worried all at once. The Leaky Cauldron would be full to bursting tonight. “And I’m sure that on average Hufflepuff is a much safer house than either Gryffindor or Slytherin.”

Draco sighed. “I still don’t concede that’s a foregone conclusion — but I think you’re probably right.”

Harry took Draco’s hand, and Andromeda linked elbows with him, as they began the walk back to the apparition point.

“Come on. We’ll be alright. I love you,” Harry said. “I’m sure we can borrow a couple of kids whenever you’re in dire straits. Rose and Hugo. Rose loves painting over your tattoos.”

“This weekend, d’you think?” Draco asked.

Harry stopped, and took Draco’s face between his hands. He leaned in for a warm, affectionate kiss, and Draco smiled.

“I’m sure this weekend would be fine,” Harry said.

**~fin~**

**Author's Note:**

> You can find me at [fuckyoupbk](http://fuckyoupbk.tumblr.com). Come and say hi :D


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